The brother and sister could find nothing to say in reply. In giving the ticket to Dame Hansen, Hulda had been prompted by a filial sentiment that was certainly to be commended rather than censured. The sacrifice she had made was not one of more or less probable chance, but of Ole Kamp’s last wishes and of her last memento of her lover.
But it was too late to think of this now. Sandgoist had the ticket. It belonged to him, and he would sell it to the highest bidder. A heartless usurer would thus coin money out of the touching farewell of the shipwrecked mariner. Sylvius Hogg could not bear the thought. It was intolerable to him.
He resolved to have a talk with Dame Hansen on the subject that very day. This conversation could effect no change in the state of affairs, but it had become almost necessary.
“So you think I did wrong, Monsieur Hogg?” she asked, after allowing the professor to say all he had to say on the subject.
“Certainly, Dame Hansen.”
“If you blame me for having engaged in rash speculations, and for endangering the fortune of my children, you are perfectly right; but if you blame me for having resorted to the means I did to free myself, you are wrong. What have you to say in reply?”
“Nothing.”
“But seriously, do you think that I ought to have refused the offer of Sandgoist, who really offered fifteen thousand marks for a ticket that is probably worth nothing; I ask you again, do you think I ought to have refused it?”
“Yes and no, Dame Hansen.”
“It cannot be both yes and no, professor; it is no. Under different circumstances, and if the future had appeared less threatening—though that was my own fault, I admit—I should have upheld Hulda in her refusal to part with the ticket she had received from Ole Kamp. But when there was a certainty of being driven in a few days from the house in which my husband died, and in which my children first saw the light, I could not understand such a refusal, and you yourself, Monsieur Hogg, had you been in my place, would certainly have acted as I did.”
“No, Dame Hansen, no!”
“What would you have done, then?”
“I would have done anything rather than sacrifice a ticket my daughter had received under such circumstances.”
“Do these circumstances, in your opinion, enhance the value of the ticket?”
“No one can say.”
“On the contrary, everyone does know. This ticket is simply one that has nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine chances of losing against one of winning. Do you consider it any more valuable because it was found in a bottle that was picked up at sea?”
Sylvius Hogg hardly knew what to say in reply to this straightforward question, so he reverted to the sentimental side of the question by remarking:
“The situation now seems to be briefly as follows: Ole Kamp, as the ship went down, bequeathed to Hulda the sole earthly possession left him, with the request that she should present it on the day of the drawing, provided, of course, that the ticket reached her; and now this ticket is no longer in Hulda’s possession.”
“If Ole Kamp had been here, he would not have hesitated to surrender his ticket to Sandgoist,” replied Dame Hansen.
“That is quite possible,” replied Sylvius Hogg; “but certainly no other person had a right to do it, and what will you say to him if he has not perished and if he should return tomorrow, or this very day?”
“Ole will never return,” replied Dame Hansen, gloomily. “Ole is dead, Monsieur Hogg, dead, beyond a doubt.”
“You cannot be sure of that, Dame Hansen,” exclaimed the professor. “In fact, you know nothing at all about it. Careful search is being made for some survivor of the shipwreck. It may prove successful; yes, even before the time appointed for the drawing of this lottery. You have no right to say that Ole Kamp is dead, so long as we have no proof that he perished in the catastrophe. The reason I speak with less apparent assurance before your children is that I do not want to arouse hopes that may end in bitter disappointment. But to you, Dame Hansen, I can say what I really think, and I cannot, I will not believe that Ole Kamp is dead! No, I will not believe it!”
Finding herself thus worsted, Dame Hansen ceased to argue the question, and this Norwegian, being rather superstitious in her secret heart, hung her head as if Ole Kamp was indeed about to appear before her.
“At all events, before parting with the ticket,” continued Sylvius Hogg, “there was one very simple thing that you neglected to do.”
“What?”
“You should first have applied to your personal friends or the friends of your family. They would not have refused to assist you, either by purchasing the mortgage of Sandgoist, or by loaning you the money to pay it.”
“I have no friends of whom I could ask such a favor.”
“Yes, you have, Dame Hansen. I know at least one person who would have done it without the slightest hesitation.”
“And who is that, if you please?”
“Sylvius Hogg, member of the Storthing.”
Dame Hansen, too deeply moved to reply in words, bowed her thanks to the professor.
“But what’s done can’t be undone, unfortunately,” added Sylvius Hogg,
