She paused and looked at Ulrika steadily.
"Remember!" she said, with an evil leer on her lips, "I hold a secret of yours that is worth the keeping! I give you two weeks more; within that time you must act! Destroy the witch,--bring back to me my grandchild Britta, or else--it will be my turn!"
And she laughed silently. Ulrika's face grew paler, and the hand that grasped the folds of her shawl trembled violently. She made an effort, however, to appear composed, as she answered--"I have sworn to obey you, Lovisa,--and I will. But tell me one thing--how do you know that Thelma Güldmar is indeed a witch?"
"How do I know?" almost yelled Lovisa. "Have I lived all these years for nothing? Look at her! Am I like her? Are you like her? Are any of the honest women of the neighborhood like her? Meet her on the hills with knives and pins,--prick her, and see if the blood will flow! I swear it will not--not one drop! Her skin is too white; there is no blood in those veins--only fire! Look at the pink in her cheeks,--the transparency of her flesh,--the glittering light in her eyes, the gold of her hair, it is all devil's work, it is not human, it is not natural! I have watched her,--I used to watch her mother, and curse her every time I saw her--ay! curse her till I was breathless with cursing--"
She stopped abruptly. Ulrika gazed at her with as much wonder as her plain, heavy face was capable of expressing. Lovisa saw the look and smiled darkly.
"One would think you had never known what love is!" she said, with a sort of grim satire in her tone. "Yet even your dull soul was on fire once! But I--when I was young, I had beauty such as you never had, and I loved--Olaf Güldmar."
Ulrika uttered an exclamation of astonishment. "You! and yet you hate him now?"
Lovisa raised her hand with an imperious gesture.
"I have grown hate like a flower in my breast," she said, with a sort of stern impressiveness. "I have fostered it year after year, and now,--it has grown too strong for me! When Olaf Güldmar was young he told me I was fair; once he kissed my cheek at parting! For those words,--for that kiss,--I loved him then--for the same things I hate him now! When I know he had married, I cursed him; on the day of my own marriage with a man I despised, I cursed him! I have followed him and all his surroundings with more curses than there are hours in the day! I have had some little revenge--yes!"--and she laughed grimly--"but I want more! For Britta has been caught by his daughter's evil spell. Britta is mine, and I must have her back. Understand me well!--do what you have to do without delay! Surely it is an easy thing to ruin a woman!"