"And I tried not to look at it, because it made me afraid, but just as I turned my eyes away from it, I saw that there was someone in the house after all. Someone sitting at the window of the little room above the cellar, almost opposite the gatepost, and looking down at it.
"It was an old woman, with a stern but beautiful face, and white hair set up under a cap—I had never seen anyone wear a cap like that before. She sat quite still, with folded hands, and her eyes fixed on the post. Sitting there like a stone, just looking and looking at it all the time.
"Now I felt more afraid of her than of the post itself, and I turned away from the window, and tried to make her go away, by thinking of Sigrun.
"I thought what good friends we had been, and still were. There was nothing that could separate us. The winter before, Sigrun had been away, to visit some relatives in the south, and stayed with them for several months, but when she came back, we were just as good friends as before.
"I never needed to do more than just call for Sigrun to make all darkness vanish away. But it did not help me this time. When I turned to the window again, there was the farmhouse, just as before, and the old woman still staring darkly and fixedly down at the same spot.
"Father and mother, sitting by the hearth, were talking the same way as before.
"'Yes, it will be hard for Lotta,' said mother. 'But she's young, and young folks soon forget.'
"'Yes, that's true. As long as you're young,' said father.
"And then they sighed, and puffed away at their pipes.
"Heavy thoughts weighed on me now. I felt that father and mother were right, and that something cruel was going to happen to me.
"Then I tried again. I thought of Sigrun, as she had been, when she came to me a few months back and told me that she was engaged to a clergyman she had met while she had been away staying with her friends.
"She had been so happy at the thought of marrying a priest. It was just the thing for her, as a clergyman's daughter. And he had a living of his own already, and his own congregation, though he was only a little over thirty. It was only a small place, but then he was not to be there long. With his powers, he would certainly end as a bishop.
"So, really, it was a fine thing that he had a home of his own already, and they could get married in the autumn.
"I was a little astonished at first, for I had always thought she was going to be a nurse, but she said it was just the same when you married a priest. Better, indeed, for now she would have a whole congregation to help and look after.
"I thought over all this, and looked out again, thinking it would be better now. But it was only worse, for now the old woman stood up, and I could see her face. And it was dark with anger and hate, and she lifted a clenched hand and shook it toward me, pointing with the other hand toward the gatepost. It was just as if she had said, if I dared to touch it, it would be the worse for me.
"She was terrible to look at, and I was frightened, but at the same time, she was so pitifully old and helpless, I felt like crying with pity for her.
"But then, just as she raised her hand, the whole thing disappeared. All—farmhouse and gatepost and the old woman herself. As if there had never been anything there at all. And oh, I felt such a relief.
"Why should I be anxious, just because Sigrun had her lover staying on a visit for a day or so? And why should mother and father be anxious about me, just because they had seen him in church that day?
"And then at last I saw a couple of heads appear on the river bank. And I was so glad, and called out to mother and father:
"'That's Sigrun, I'm sure, coming to show me her lover. Come and look, if it isn't right—the two there coming down toward the river?'
"Then mother made haste to put away her pipe and move all the chairs about and wipe up a few drops of water spilt on the floor.
"But father came over to me by the window, and we stood looking out at the two. And now I saw the man for the first time, walking there with Sigrun on his arm. He was not so very tall, but strongly built—a broad-shouldered, powerful man. And handsome, with a fine head. I could not see anything to find fault with, unless it were that he was short-sighted and wore glasses.
"When they came in, they looked proud and happy. And I was pleased, too, with Sigrun's lover, and glad they had come to see me. He looked as if he could take care of his wife, whatever might happen. As long as she had him to support her, surely she could never be unhappy or discouraged.
"The priest spoke kindly to father and mother. But when he came to speak to me, he blinked his eyes a little behind his glasses, and looked at me with a sort of smile.
"'Aha,' said he, 'so this is the great seer, the wise young woman from Stenbroträsk. I'm quite afraid of her. She can see through people, of course, and what if she were dissatisfied with me!'
"And he laughed, and Sigrun too, and father smiled a little.
"It was as if I was just something to laugh at and make fun of.
"I went all red at first, with the blood rushing to my face. Then I felt I turned all stiff and hard. And I could not understand how anyone could talk so openly about the thing that was my holiest secret. And how could Sigrun ever have betrayed me, and told her lover, when I had told her just because I could trust her?"
Lotta Hedman's voice rose to a shriller tone, just as when she had spoken of her hard and lonely life. The pain of her thoughts rang in her words.
The man before her looked up with a sad smile.
"You might surely have known it must be so," he said. "Sigrun had given herself to him with all her soul, with all her thoughts, and all she had ever known."
"That was so, perhaps," said the other, "but it was cruel to me to feel. Mother tried to answer for me, for she knew I could not say anything myself then.
"'She has but a foolish mother, has my girl,' said mother. 'But the Lord has heard my prayers. He has given me a daughter that sees and understands more than most.'
"I felt how brave it was of mother to speak out. I could have gone down on my knees and thanked her, but she was silent, she too, when the priest gave her one sharp look through his eyeglasses, and began talking with a thick and heavy voice, all important, as if he might have been standing in the pulpit.
"'We've need to be ever watchful, those of us who are Christians,' he said, 'lest we should fall back into heathen ways. And whosoever seeks to penetrate into the unknown is trying, as it were, to go their own way instead of the way that is Christ Jesus. Beware of setting up other gods; of setting up oneself as God.'
"And he preached like that for a long while. And nobody in the room dared to say a word against him now. And where was all that I had seen and heard before? It all seemed blown away in a breath, the moment that man came into the house. And I had to sit there, helpless, without a word, and hear him preaching and correcting me in front of Sigrun and mother and father.
"I looked over at Sigrun, and there she was sitting, looking up at her lover all humbly and admiring. And I could see she was pleased that he was trying to lead me into the right way. And she, too, felt now just as he did, that all we had had to talk of together before was something wicked and harmful. He was speaking for my good, and all I had to do was to turn from my erring ways and try to be like everyone else.
"I was so miserable; it was so cruel. I would rather have died than sit there and see Sigrun turn away from me like that."
The listener looked up once more.
"Yet it was good, surely, that she had no other thought, no thought of her own, but only his thoughts," he said. "That is the beautiful thing about her."
Lotta Hedman went on without heeding.
"They stayed some time, not talking to me alone, you understand, but to mother and father too. And all that the priest man said was kind and sensible in a way; he knew how to speak. When he dropped out of the preaching tone, his voice was cheerful and bright. It was easy to understand that Sigrun was fond of him.
"I did not say a word as long as he was there, and Sigrun looked at me every now and then with a sort of surprise, and at last she asked me was I ill? But I only shook my head. She didn't seem to think anything but that I ought to be quite happy about it all.
"It was a relief when at last they were gone. But then a thing happened. Sigrun had forgotten her gloves, and came back by herself to fetch them."
The man sitting listening had changed countenance. "What right have you," he asked himself, "to sit and listen to all this talk of Sigrun? Take care! Longing will return, sorrow will return, and love wake afresh. It will be just as it was six years ago, when you sat on the rocks dreaming of love. Day after day, dreaming of her."
"And then," Lotta Hedman went on—"then she asked me if I did not think her lover was wonderful and splendid; had I ever believed there was such a man in the world? And when I still said nothing, she lost patience altogether.
"'Whatever is the matter with you to-day?' she asked. 'What makes you silent and hard all at once? I thought it would do you good to talk to a priest. And he was so eager to see you himself, and I've told him so much about you, and how strange you were. And what will he think now?'
"I sat quite still until she was out of the door. But then I ran after her.
"'Oh! Sigrun, don't marry him!' I cried. 'He will make you miserable.' And Sigrun looked at me all astonished, and I said again, 'He will kill your soul, as he has killed mine!'
"Then Sigrun drew herself up.
"'Now you are wicked and unkind,' she said, 'to speak like that just because someone says things that do not please you to hear.'
"And then she went away for good.
"And I was glad that mother and father did not say anything, did not try to comfort me or explain things. I went out into the kitchen, all cold as it was, and sat down and cried. Cried for hours together. Crying for our beautiful friendship, and for my own soul that had been taken away and could never come back; I felt myself wronged and betrayed; and for the first time in my life I tasted that bitter fruit."
Lotta Hedman had lowered her voice, just as when she had ended her long speech about the letter to the King and the Millennium. Her face showed deep suffering; she felt the agony of humiliation.
HÅNGER
OH, BUT Lotta Hedman was glad to tell her story. It was a delight to be able to speak of Sigrun.
And she tried so hard to speak properly, and not in her country dialect; tried to speak as seriously as a book of devotion. And she was grateful to her listener, who sat there still, following all she said, with a patience that seemed as if it would never end.
"And now there is only one thing more I have to tell you before you can give me the advice I want," she said.
"Do not put yourself out in any way at all," he said. "Talk as you please; we have time enough before us."
Lotta Hedman dropped back immediately into the tone of the story-teller.
"Well, then, it was in the autumn of that same year," she began again, "and it had just come on to rain so heavily that we were obliged to hurry back into the house, father and mother and myself, or we should have been drenched to the skin.
"And we had hardly got indoors when the door opened and a couple of big, burly men came rushing in. They asked quite nicely if they might stay till the rain was over. And father bade them welcome, and mother and I set out each our chair for them by the door.
"And one of them was talkative, and asked father if he thought they could get work at the new sawmills they were building at Stenbroträsk. But the other man was very quiet, and said nothing, only sat staring out of the east window all the time.
"And the rain was pouring against that window with full force. There was such a stream of water down the panes you could hardly see out.
"I wondered what it could be he was staring at. For I was quite sure he must be looking at something else besides raindrops and hailstones.
"And I went up and sat down in my old place by the window and looked out.
"But there was nothing to be seen except the little grey outhouses and the water streaming from all the roofs. And it was so thick and dark outside you could hardly see as far as the river bank. And the rainclouds hung over beyond as close as a curtain.
"I thought how I had sat at that window on dark evenings, when the darkness had not hindered me from seeing; had sat there in dense snowstorms, but the snowflakes had not hindered me; I had seen ships sailing and railway trains rushing by, and kings making entry into beautiful cities, and wedding processions and angels dancing and at play before my eyes.
"But what could it help me now, though I sat at the east window? My seeing eye was closed; I could make out nothing now but the yard and the sheds and the pouring rain. There came no warnings to me now, no message, no revelations any more.
"I fancied I could see something that looked like red houses and tall woods against the grey wall of cloud, but it was all dark and indistinct.
"And I tried to feel glad that I was like others now, but my life seemed poor now, and weighed me down, now that I no longer saw or heard anything beyond what was real. I felt no joy in living. I was like one that has sat for a long time at a feast with all things plentiful, and now had not so much as a crumb to ease my hunger.
"And there was no one now that could comfort me, for Sigrun was just about to be married, and going to move down to the husband's place at Applum, in Bohuslän. She had asked me if I would go with her to her new home, and help her there, for that was what we had agreed long before. But I told her I would rather stay with mother and father in Stenbroträsk. For I would not go with Sigrun now. She had never been the same since she heard me speak ill of her lover, and I could no longer look at her now as a strange bird that had lost the way; she seemed well enough at home now among earthly things.
"Then just when my thoughts were darkest, I heard footsteps, and the silent stranger stood beside me, leaning toward the wet panes.
"'A very strange window, this,' he said, and touched my arm to make me look. 'I wonder now if you can see the same as I do?'
"'I can't see anything,' I said. 'But why do you say it is a strange window?'
"'It must be strange,' he said, 'since I am looking at Hånger farm in Dalsand through the window of a house in Stenbroträsk, ever so far away.'
"'Is that a farm standing high on a hill, with apple trees on a slope in front?' I asked. 'Is there a store-cellar with a little room on top, and a gate with one old rotten gatepost, and an old woman sitting at the window?'
"'Yes,' he said, leaning down to see better; 'that is right. There is an old woman sitting at the window of the cellar room; it is all as you say.'
"'And she is staring at the gatepost; isn't that right? Staring as if she could not take her eyes from it?'
"'Yes,' he said, and drew a deep breath. 'Yes, sitting there watching lest the gatepost should fall. She must hold by that till the end of the world.'
"And I could see how anxious he was about what he saw. There were big drops of sweat on his forehead, and he was deadly pale, and could hardly speak.
"But then he turned away from the window, and looked quickly at me. 'But you say you can see nothing?'
"'I can see nothing now,' I said. 'But one day last spring I saw the farmhouse as you say it is.'
"And now I noticed that father and mother and the other stranger had come closer and were listening.
"'There are many in our family who have that gift,' said the other stranger to father, in a low voice, 'but I have never heard until to-day that my brother had it too.'
"But the one who had spoken to me before turned his eyes to the window again, and next moment he started back, afraid.
"'She has seen me!' he cried. 'It is all over with me now!'
"And it was strange to see him so afraid, that great, strong man. But not even mother, who was always ready enough to laugh, so much as smiled at him now.
"'Let us sing a hymn,' I whispered to mother. And we sang the first verse that came into our heads.
"And while we were singing, the rain stopped. The grey cloud hung no longer like a wall above the river bank, and a ray of sunlight stole into the room.
"The man who had seen the vision had sat down on a chair, with his hands before his face, not daring to look up or even to move.
"But now, when it cleared up and grew bright again, his brother spoke to him sensibly.
"'Come now, Jon,' he said. 'The rain has stopped, and we can go on now. Look up; you can see it is all gone now.'
"But Jon sat huddled up in his chair, and only moved his elbow to say he would not be disturbed.
"'No, Anders, no,' he said. 'Let me be. I dare not.'
"Then Anders came over to us, and shook his head.
"'It is no wonder he was afraid,' he said. 'For the thing he saw was something that once was, and the place he spoke of is the place our grandfather's father came from.'
"'I think he said it was called Hånger,' I said, seeing that none of the others spoke.
"'Yes,' he answered. 'Hånger it is, and it lies in Dalsland, and we who come from there are called the trollfolk of Hånger. We are bigger in body than most men, and they say we are ill to meet, but, for my part, I know of nothing strange about us, beyond that we all die by our own hand. My father did so, and his father and his father's father before him.'
"When he had spoken, all was silent again. We shuddered, and could not ask nor speak a word. But the stranger seemed to feel that when he had said so much, he must go on.
"'They say it all comes of an old story,' he said. 'In the old days, the men of Hånger were proud and rich, and would submit to none, and often they were at feud with the priests. And once it seems that one of them killed a priest in a fit of jealousy. But it was never found out who had done it. The crime was never atoned, and for the sake of that sin, it has been so ever since, that all the men from Hånger must die a violent death, by their own hand or another's.'
"'But surely that can't be,' said mother. 'That the innocent should suffer for the guilty, no.'
"It happens, for all that, and none so rarely to my mind,' said the man. 'It's not easy to say how it's managed about that. But there was a woman there at Hånger, mother to him that had murdered the priest. And they say she knew all about it, and helped the son to dig a grave under one of the gateposts and long after he was dead she used to sit watching the spot, that no one should pull it up or break it down or put another post in its place. She moved down into the little room above the store-cellar, that was closer to the gate, and there she would sit watching night and day, and some say she's watching there still. And Hånger's passed from our family now, and the trollfolk of Hånger are scattered about all parts, but it seems that all of her blood can still see her. She follows us, folk say, and sees that never one of us escapes the penalty of that crime.'
"But mother would not give in.
"'It can't be that this should go on,' she said. 'There must be something you could do to make an end of it?'
"'True,' said the man. 'And there's those that have tried. Two of us there were that thought it would be well if they themselves became priests. But I don't know if the old lady found that to her mind. One of them died when he was still young—the other is still alive.'
"I was getting more and more frightened now, and, putting together all that had passed, I knew well enough what answer I should get when I put my question.
"'And is his name Rhånge?' I asked.
"'But—heavens, child!' cried mother.
"The man answered at once:
"'That's right. Rhånge he calls himself. It's just Hånger spelt round another way. He's the Pastor at Applum in Bohuslän, and just married, so I've heard, a daughter of the priest at Stenbroträsk.'"
The listener in the corner gave a sudden start.
"Well, now, I don't mean one should always go by such old stories," said Lotta Hedman. "But there might be something in this after all, and perhaps it was wrong of me not to have gone with Sigrun to Bohuslän after I had heard all this. And perhaps that's why everything has gone wrong with me since. For though I've got back my seeing and hearing again, there's none will ever listen to what I say, and perhaps that's because I failed in my duty to Sigrun. And would it be right now?"
She broke off; her face, that had been alive with feeling, stiffened and hardened all at once.
"I can see something," she said. "Ice and snow, all white. And a tent—a black tent—and a long sledge...."
The train entered a station. Lotta Hedman's fellow traveller rose hurriedly from his seat and reached up for his luggage on the rack.
Lotta Hedman did not heed; she was full of the vision that had come to her.
The man had left the train, and was moving across the platform when he heard Lotta's voice calling him back. But he went on without turning round.
Lotta pulled at the strap of the window with all her might, but by the time she had opened it, the man had disappeared.
THE MEETING
TWO days later, Lotta Hedman sat in a hired cart, jolting on along a stony road in the parish of Algeröd, in the eastern part of Bohuslän, far from the sea, right up on the Dalsland side.
"Heavens!" she thought, looking round; "this is worse than Lappland. Bare rock everywhere—I never saw the like in all my life. How can anyone live and get their wherewithal in such a desert?"
And indeed the country she was passing through was little more than a level stretch of rocky upland. Heather and juniper, moss and stunted fir showed here and there, but the rock was everywhere.
The more she looked at her surroundings, the more her spirits sank.
"What could Sigrun and her husband have been thinking of," she wondered, "to move out to a place like this? They were not so badly off before, by all accounts. Close to the sea, with a well-to-do congregation, and people round about. What possessed them to come out to a wilderness like this?"
The stony waste seemed filling her with its own desolation.
"There's no living to be got here, for priest nor any other. Well, if they've not enough to have me with them, I'll just have to go back home again, that's all."
At the moment, she felt doubtful if she had acted wisely in coming thus to visit Sigrun without an invitation, or even sending word herself beforehand of her coming. She ought at any rate to have sent a message through Sigrun's parents, or let her know in some way.
"Herre Gud!" she thought to herself, as she drove on. "And six years now since Sigrun left her home at Stenbroträsk, and all that time I've hardly heard a word of her. A letter or two the first year, and then I saw her once or twice the summer she came home to visit her people, but neither of us did anything really to be friends again like we used.
"I can't forget the beautiful letter she wrote me when her little daughter was born. I was so glad. And she wanted me to come to her then and help her with the little one. But I couldn't leave them at home, and I didn't really want to, I suppose. It seemed hard to go and stay with Sigrun as a maid, and I was afraid of her husband, too. Anyhow, I've regretted it since, for when the child died I couldn't help thinking it might have lived if I had been there helping Sigrun as she asked. And perhaps she thinks so too. I've never heard a word from her since then."
She felt a weight at her heart. Perhaps, after all, the long journey would come to nothing.
She strove to repress her anxiety. "What will be, must be," she told herself. "Day after day I heard voices and had warnings telling me to go. I had no peace nor rest to work things out. 'Sigrun, Sigrun, first of all,' something was always saying, when I was trying to find out about the war and the millennium. And then, when father and mother died, and my brother took over the place and gave me the wretched little cellar room to live in—why shouldn't I start out and see if she needed me? There, Lotta Hedman, now pull yourself together. At least, you are seeing something of the world, and not wasting your money all to nothing."
As she was thus endeavouring to raise her drooping courage, the driver lifted his whip and pointed to a dark, pointed church-tower rising from a clump of trees.
"There's the church already," he said. "We're nearly there now."
Directly after, the road began to slope down into a narrow valley, with a winding river at the bottom, some farms and houses and fields, groups of trees, and a little wooden church.
But before they reached the place, the driver lifted his whip again.
"Bless me, but I do believe it's Mistress from the parsonage herself going down the road, ahead there."
At his words Lotta Hedman felt the weight at her heart almost stifling her. She could hardly breathe, and all her courage was gone in a moment.
"Oh, why ever did I come like this?" she asked herself. "Perhaps she won't even remember me. What ever made me set off on this wild adventure? Perhaps, after all, only to be laughed at and treated with scorn."
The driver of the cart evidently thought he was driving a new servant to the vicarage; he turned to Lotta and asked if he should pull up, so that she might speak to her new mistress as they passed.
"Oh, heavens!" she thought. "If I could only turn back now."
And then, when they were within a few steps of Sigrun, Lotta felt her fears completely overwhelming her. All her faith in voices and warnings was gone; she stretched out her hand to grasp the reins.
"Turn, turn back!" she cried. "I am not going any farther. It must be the wrong way."
But they were so close now that Sigrun heard, and turned round. And at sight of a strange woman trying to take the reins from the driver, a slight smile passed over her serious face.
Next moment, however, before the smile had faded, she put her hand to her heart, and hurried up to the pair.
"Oh, Lotta—is it really you?" she said, with tears in her eyes.
But at sight of her tears, Lotta thought only that they must be for her little girl that had died because she had not come to help.
She threw herself down from the cart, and would have fallen at Sigrun's feet in the road to beg her forgiveness.
But before she could do so, Sigrun had taken her in her arms, and was telling her how glad—how glad she was to see her.
And Lotta understood that Sigrun was weeping for joy that she had come.
And she herself was very happy; this was surely the greatest thing that had ever happened in her life. But at the same time she thought to herself: "Sigrun must be unhappy, indeed, if she weeps for joy at seeing one so poor as I."
THE VICARAGE
IT WAS an evening in November, when the days were short and the nights seemed as if they would never end.
All the district round about the vicarage at Algeröd was quiet and still as in the vicarage itself. The horses had come in from the fields and were stabled, the cows had been milked, and the fowls had gone to their roost.
In the brewhouse, or, rather, in the little room beside it, sat Lotta Hedman that still evening, busy with her calculations. She had the Bible before her, and pen and ink and paper, and was searching earnestly in her dear Book of Revelation.
In the kitchen, in the main building, the fire had gone out, and cook and housemaid sat at the sewing-machine trying to reshape a blouse that the seamstress had somehow mismanaged; the man was in an adjoining room, stretched on a bench, waiting for supper-time to come.
The priest was sitting in his study, but not at his writing-table. He sat in a rocking-chair in one corner of the room. A lamp was close by, and he was reading the paper. When he raised his eyes, he could see into the next room, where his wife was sitting on a low stool by the stove. She sat with her chin in her hands staring into the fire.
Close beside her sat the Bailie, who was staying at the vicarage by arrangement. He was in poor health, and the Rhånges had been glad to take him in, since the sum he paid for his keep was a welcome aid to their scanty resources now they had moved to this poor living up in the waste lands. He was a man of about fifty, who had never done anything but please himself all his life, until at last his affairs had been taken out of his hands, and he himself had been sent up to a place where he would have no opportunity of wasting the little that remained to him of money and health.
The Bailie showed traces of a stroke he had had some time before: one side of his face was drawn awry, and the left eyelid hung down and could hardly be opened, but, for all that, he was a fine-looking man, of good bearing. He was a man of the world, had travelled much, and was intelligent and interesting to talk to.
He had drawn up a chair near the fire, and was telling Sigrun about foreign lands, that she had never seen and never would see, now that she sat buried here in a little parsonage in Sweden.
Sigrun was busy with her own thoughts and her restless desires, and let his words pass idly by. She she could have listened to what he was saying; it would have perhaps dispelled her weariness and longing if she could. But it was beyond her power.
Every now and then the Pastor raised his head and looked in to them from the room where he sat. And, listening, he could hear that they were talking of great cities in the lands where now the war raged at its worst. And it seemed to him very foolish of Sigrun to sit listening to all that idle chatter.
Out in the brewhouse where Lotta Hedman sat, the milkmaid had just finished rinsing her pail with hot water, and, seeing that the work was ended and the room would not be in use any more that day, Lotta moved in there with her table, her lamp, and her Bible. She drew a pair of pink stuff curtains across, in front of the great bricked-in cauldrons, hiding all the smoky black corner and making the place look more like a living-room.
She had a comfortable wicker chair to sit in, and brought out another now from the room adjoining, placing it by the table. For it was Sigrun's custom to come out and talk to Lotta for a while during the long evenings. Now and again the Bailie would come out and sit for a long time, coaxing Lotta to talk of Sigrun, and sometimes the Pastor himself would come and tease her by asking if she had yet discovered the mystery of the seven seals and the glorious millennium.
Lotta Hedman had been asked to stay at the vicarage and help with odd work, looking after the fowls and such-like, on condition that she could be content with a room in the brewhouse. She had accepted the offer with joy. Sigrun had herself put up wall paper and curtains in the little room at the side, and given her really beautiful things to furnish it with. Lotta had had her belongings sent down from Stenbroträsk, managed her own housekeeping independently of the rest of the household, and in the evenings she had the two rooms entirely to herself. It was quite like having a real drawing-room of her own.
About the same time as Lotta moved into the scullery, the lad in the men's room went into the kitchen to find someone to talk to. The milkmaid was there as well. And now all began talking about their master and mistress, and wondering if the Pastor had not yet found out that the Bailie was in love with his wife.
"He was so jealous about her before, they say," said the milkmaid, "that he moved up here on purpose, to be somewhere where she wouldn't be likely to see anyone but him. But he doesn't seem to mind about this Bailie man."
"Thinks it's not worth worrying about, I dare say," said the lad. "An old man like that, and half dead with the stroke already."
The Bailie was sitting as before by the stove in the inner room. But he was silent now, and had drawn up his chair and sat deep in thought.
He knew that Sigrun had not been listening to what he told her. What could he find to talk about that would make her listen to him?
He had spoken of life in the great cities of the world, and of the part women played there. He had spoken of women as those whose mission it was to reconcile, one to life. Said that men became humble and good when they met with beauty, personified in the likeness of a young woman. He had told her that one possessing the gift of beauty should regard it as a duty to use it for healing, reconciling, bettering her fellow creatures.
But, to tell the truth, he hardly knew whether she had heard a single word of all he had said.
It was easier to attract her attention when her husband was there. Then, he never spoke to her at all, but only to the Pastor.
And then, he felt, he was forcing her to make comparison between the experienced man of the world and the simple Priest; between one who had seen and shared in great events and one who buried himself in a wilderness, never studying, never progressing, but in a fair way to sink to the level of a common peasant.
He knew that the Priest despised him. He was often irritated and humiliated by his host's treatment. But he bore it all very patiently, knowing that nothing was more calculated to lower the husband in the eyes of his wife than his showing himself tactless and devoid of finer feeling.
The Bailie sat silent for some minutes, and then taking a subject near at hand in these days of the Great War, he commenced to talk of the Red Cross, its originators, its organization, and the brave work of the Red Cross Sisters in the war.
He noticed at once that the beautiful woman by his side became attentive; she tore herself away from her own thoughts and listened.
Just at the moment when the Bailie had begun talking about the Red Cross, it happened that Lotta Hedman lifted her eyes from her Bible. Her thoughts were suddenly restless, and she could not keep her mind concentrated on her work.
"I wonder," she thought to herself, "if Sigrun has ceased to love her husband. She hardly ever speaks of him now. And the servants say he plagues her with his jealousy. But one thing is certain: he wrongs her in that. If she does not care for him, she certainly cares for no other man."
A sudden smile lit up her face.
"And here's this foolish old invalid trying to make himself agreeable," she thought. "But that matters little; nobody bothers about him."
"It must be a great misfortune to be so beautiful as Sigrun," she told herself. "You are better off as you are, Lotta."
She turned to her Bible again and tried not to think of Sigrun any more. "I hope it doesn't mean something is going to happen to her, since I am so anxious all of a sudden."
The Pastor sat on in his room, reading by the light of the lamp. Again and again he had glanced at the pair by the stove, noting quite carelessly and easily how they sat there, while they, on their part, found nothing to disturb them in the thought that he could see them all the time. Then suddenly he noticed a change. It was impossible to say where it lay. Perhaps the speaker's voice had grown louder and warmer; perhaps the young wife's attitude was different. The Pastor laid down his paper, rose to his feet, and, leaning forward with all his senses on the alert, he watched them.
The visitor was still talking about nursing and works of mercy during the war. After a little while, he saw that a tear rolled down the woman's cheek and dropped to her knee, glistened there a moment, and disappeared; then, very gently, tear after tear fell.
For a long time he went on talking, without appearing to notice her emotion; then, suddenly, he bent forward so that he almost touched her.
"So that is what you have been wanting—that is what you are longing for?" he said. "You want to take part in the work out there yourself?"
She folded her hands and held them out toward him.
"Oh, how can I help it?" she cried—"longing for it with all my heart. It is dreadful to live on here in comfort, doing nothing."
"But could you not get away, then?"
"There would be nothing wrong in it," said the woman, lifting her folded hands toward the speaker. "If I could only be free for just a little while. After all, I am a human being—I ought to be allowed to choose for myself for once."
The sick man took her hands in his and drew them toward him.
"True, indeed!" he said. "You have the right to live as well as the rest of us."
Just then they heard footsteps behind them, saw a fierce face in the doorway of the study, and both cried aloud in dismay. The Pastor came rushing toward them, in a violent passion, which left no possibility of any explanation.
The Bailie seemed to lose his self-possession altogether. He crouched down in his chair without moving, but Sigrun threw herself toward her husband to stop him.
"Run, quick—make haste!" she cried. And the Bailie sprang to his feet and ran toward the door, while Sigrun for a moment held her husband fast.
"Edward—what is the matter?" she asked.
He did not answer, but flung her aside. She fell to the floor, striking herself badly against a corner of the table, but the Pastor, without heeding her, rushed after the fugitive, out into the hall, down the steps, and across the courtyard.
Lotta Hedman, sitting in the scullery with her Bible, was suddenly roused by the shouting and banging of doors and hurrying feet. She rose hurriedly, opened the door, and looked out. Two men were running across the courtyard; in a moment they had disappeared in the darkness.
While Lotta stood there terrified, listening to the retreating footsteps, the lad and the maids in the kitchen had likewise heard the noise, and sprung up from their seats. And now they saw their young mistress come staggering in toward them, her hair and dress in disorder, and the blood flowing from a cut on her forehead. All four hurried to her, but she waved them off impatiently.
"Never mind about me," she cried. "Hurry after my husband and—the other one. Quick, and look after them before they kill each other."
The four stood still, too confused to act on her orders, and she cried excitedly:
"Don't sit there staring at me! After them, before they kill each other!"
At this the lad hurried out, and the milkmaid, a big strong girl, followed after him, but the two others stayed in the kitchen to look to their mistress.
They brought forward a chair and begged her to sit down, for she was trembling as if the floor were swaying under her.
Her strength was at an end now, and she fell to crying like a child.
"Help me over to Lotta Hedman," she cried. "Help me over to Lotta."
The two servants took her under the arms and led her across the courtyard to Lotta's room.
And Lotta, standing in the doorway, saw them coming, and hurried forward to meet Sigrun. She led her to the wicker chair that had been waiting for her all the evening.
"And I have done nothing," said Sigrun. "Lotta, I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking, that was all. And he was sitting in the next room, watching."
Suddenly she turned deathly pale, and would have fainted, but Lotta dashed water in her face, and she came to herself.
Lotta made haste to wash the cut on her head, and saw it was neither deep nor serious; but what troubled her most was that Sigrun seemed hardly to be quite clear in her mind. She talked all the time, repeating the same thing over and over again.
"And I have done nothing," she said. "I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking. And he was sitting in the next room, watching."
"Oh, I know, Sigrun—I know you have done no wrong," said Lotta, addressing her now familiarly, as in the old days.
"You understand, Lotta, I know," said Sigrun again. "I have done nothing...."
Lotta tried to interrupt her.
"Sigrun, I'm so afraid you will be ill," she said. "We must ask Malin to get your bed ready, and you can lie down."
But at this, the flow of words suddenly stopped.
"No, not there! I will never go back to him," said the sick woman quite briefly and dearly.'
"But, dear angel," said Lotta. "You can never mean that!"
"I will lie down here," said Sigrun. "I will sleep in your bed, Lotta. I can feel I am going to be ill. And I must be in a place where I feel safe."
A moment later she began again as before:
"I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking. And he was sitting in the next room, and came rushing in...."
She looked at them with her eyes all wild, as if wondering why they did not follow what she was saying.
Lotta talked over with the two servants what was best to be done. They could find nothing better than to let the sick woman have her way. The housemaid hurried into the house and came back with sheets and pillows and blankets. Sigrun began hurriedly undressing; they had scarcely got the bed done before she was ready.
And as she was getting into bed, she cried again, so that it could be heard all through the place: "I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking. And he was in the next room, and came running in...."
As soon as Sigrun was well in bed, she called gently to Lotta:
"Don't go to bed yet, Lotta. Sit there by the table and read your Bible. And mind, you must not let anyone in the world come and take me away from here."
And so it was. Lotta sat down with her Bible and the two servants went into the house to see how matters were going there.
A moment later one of them came back with the news that nothing very terrible had happened. The Bailie had made his escape; the Pastor himself had fallen into a ditch in his pursuit, and they feared he had broken his leg. Bad enough, certainly, yet not by any means the worst that might have happened.
Sigrun was still crying aloud her explanation, but when Lotta had told her several times that there had been no fight between the men, she seemed to grow calmer, and went off to sleep.
PREPARATIONS
THOSE who heard, in this way or that, of the regrettable event which took place some weeks later in the vicarage of Algeröd were inclined to throw all the blame on Lotta Hedman.
"If the young mistress there hadn't had that half-mad creature about the place, turning her head completely with her visions and warnings, it would never have happened," they said.
But this was not fair to Lotta Hedman. Never in all her life had she been so quiet and sensible as during that time. Her friends in the other world left her in ignorance, and she had not the slightest inkling of what was to happen.
It is easy to understand that she must have been terribly anxious the first night, sitting watching by Sigrun's bedside. "How is this to end?" she asked herself again and again. "How are these two ever to begin life again together? Sigrun is altogether terrified, and he must have lost his senses altogether, and behaved like a wild beast.
"Anyhow," she thought, trying to comfort herself, "it can only have been his jealousy. And though Sigrun is just as much afraid of him as ever, it is easy to see she is still fond of him. If only love is there, then, surely, it will bring them together again."
About one o'clock that night, Sigrun opened her eyes and sat up in bed, looking round her in bewilderment. She seemed a little confused at first, but soon came to herself, and said to Lotta in a perfectly calm voice:
"Go and lie down now, Lotta. But do not put out the lamp, and do not undress. You must be ready to help me."
Then she sank back on the pillows and went to sleep again. "She is still frightened," thought Lotta, "but she is in her senses again now. Thank Heaven for that. To-morrow she will be well again."
She did as Sigrun had said—lay down on a small folding sofa and slept till seven o'clock, when she rose and was going out to look to the fowls. But just as she reached the door, Sigrun called her back.
Sigrun was crying and trembling at the thought of being left alone. She was terribly nervous again now, and when Lotta told her that her husband was hurt and unable to move, she did not seem to understand.
Lotta had to content herself with standing at the window looking out into the grey autumn dark, until the milkmaid came across. She called her in, told her that her mistress was very ill and could not be left alone, and asked her to attend to her work for the morning.
The milkmaid, too, had something to tell. The Bailie had not come back at all. He had taken refuge with the verger, who lived not far from the vicarage. He had stayed the night there, and next morning a boy from the house came over to fetch his belongings.
No one regretted his going; it was a relief to have him out of the way. The Pastor himself was in a bad way. He thought his leg was broken; a doctor had been telephoned for, and had promised to come over during the day.
"That's what comes of getting mad beyond reason," said the dairymaid. "We all knew that the Bailie was taken with Mistress, but none but a fool would ever believe she could care for a broken-down old creature like him."
Lotta Hedman, for her part, was not altogether sorry about the Pastor's accident. It would force him to keep to his bed, and Sigrun would have time to get over her fright. Lotta was almost inclined to regard it as a special intervention of Providence.
"Thank Heaven," she sighed. "It will be all right now. And perhaps when it's all over they may be happier than before."
A little later in the day, the boy from the verger's came over stealthily with a letter, but Lotta sent it back unopened.
Otherwise, the day passed quietly. Sigrun did not get up, but slept for hours together. And she was not the only one. The whole of the household seemed to have fallen into the same slumber as its mistress.
"It's all so quiet about the house to-day, it's almost uncanny," said the cook and the housemaid, when they came out to the brewhouse to ask how Mistress was getting on. "Like as if someone was on a death-bed."
The Pastor sent for Lotta, to ask after his wife. And Lotta went in and told him, with perfect truth, that Sigrun was asleep, had no fever, and that the slight cut on her forehead was nothing to speak of.
But when he suggested that Sigrun should be moved back into the house, Lotta firmly refused. Much better leave her where she was. She was all of a tremble still, and nervous.
"Afraid of me, I suppose," said her husband.
His face was marked with suffering. It was not only the broken leg that caused him pain.
"She will come back of her own accord, once she is strong again," said Lotta hastily.
The sick man sighed. "She will never come back to me," he said. "Never to me. She will never have the courage to come back."
Lotta Hedman had not thought she could ever feel any pity for the man who had destroyed her beautiful dreams as a girl. But now she tried, at any rate, to comfort him.
"Oh, surely, happiness will come to the house again," she said.
And she had really no thought of separating man and wife. She did, indeed, all that lay in her power to reconcile and reunite them.
When the doctor came, late in the afternoon, he said much the same about Sigrun as Lotta had done: she was not suffering from any actual disease, but would get well if only she were left in peace. Her nerves had been upset, and a sort of crisis had occurred.
They would have to be careful with her. She must not be contradicted, nor allowed to exert herself. She must not be persuaded to do anything but what she wished.
"I can't quite make out this case," said the doctor. "Possibly, it may be something quite different. Fru Rhånge might, for instance, have contracted some sort of infection, and have the germ of some disease in her now, to break out suddenly and seriously later on. But I cannot say for certain just at present."
These words of the doctor's were of great service to Lotta afterward; several of those at the vicarage had been present at the time, and heard what he said. And she herself was surprised when she thought of it, and believed he must have been directed from above to speak as he did.
A whole week passed without any change. Every day a messenger came stealing over from the verger's and was sent back without having gained his end. Each day Lotta was sent for by the vicar to report. And each day Sigrun lay dozing from morning till evening.
Afterward, when Lotta thought of this continuous sleep, she told herself that there must have been something within that knew what was to come. "It was not because she was tired and worn out that Sigrun slept so; no, she was just gathering strength for what she had to do."
Even when she was awake, Sigrun lay quiet and still.
She would draw her eyebrows together, and nod her head now and again, as if agreeing to something she herself proposed. Lotta was convinced that she lay there making plans for the future, but as yet she had no knowledge of them.
One day Sigrun asked her to go across to the house and fetch some money—six hundred kronor—from a drawer in her bureau. "It is all my own," she said. "I have saved up all the money father and mother gave me on my birthdays. You can understand I am anxious about it now, with no one about in the house all day."
Then one day Sigrun wanted something to read, and Lotta brought her a newspaper. She lay for a long time reading the advertisements of steamer routes and railway connections. Then she laid the paper aside. Lotta paid no heed to that at the time, but afterward she remembered.
In the course of that one quiet week, the winter had come in earnest. It was not particularly cold, but a good deal of snow had fallen, and the ground was white all round. The snow was deep enough, indeed, for sledges.
This whiteness outside her window reminded Sigrun of her home and the long winters there—and the thought seemed to cheer her. On the day when the first snow came, she got up and dressed.
"That's right, my angel," said Lotta Hedman. "You'll get strong all the sooner, if you sit up a little. I'm sure now we shall have you well by Christmas."
Sigrun stopped suddenly in her dressing.
"Will it be Christmas soon?" she asked. "I had forgotten all about Christmas." She was plainly distressed at being reminded of the coming feast. The impossibility of spending Christmas anywhere but in her home seemed to strike her. "If anything's to be done, it must be done before then," she murmured. "I must have it all over before Christmas."
Lotta Hedman heard what she said, but thought it referred to some ordinary preparations for Christmas which must be completed in time.
One evening, Lotta Hedman told Sigrun about the man she had met in the train. She described his appearance, his gentle, pleasant voice, his humility. "He was so kind to me," she said. "But just as one of my visions was coming, he ran away."
"What sort of a vision?" asked Sigrun.
"Something from the far north," said Lotta. "I saw a field of ice, and a black tent, and a long sledge."
Sigrun lay without speaking, searching her memory.
"Lotta," she said, after a while, "this is a strange thing. It must be Sven Elversson, and no other, that you met. He is just as you said to look at, and it would be just like him to run away as soon as you began to see visions that would remind him of ice-fields and the Arctic."
"Who is Sven Elversson?" asked Lotta.
Sigrun roused herself a little from her dreamy state and told Lotta something of Sven Elversson's story.
"I wish I knew where he is now," she said at last. "He was a very good man, and very unhappy. I believe he felt himself so despised, so trodden underfoot, that he looked on it as his business to attend to things which others counted themselves too good for. Once he let himself be shut up in a cell with a murderer, to get him to confess. He married a woman from a children's school, one of the ugliest creatures I have ever seen. That was out of sheer humility, too, I suppose. When we lived at Applum, everybody spoke of him. But he moved away from there before we did."
Lotta Hedman remembered her travelling companion's gentle voice and the feeling of confidence with which he had inspired her.
"Be sure God has some purpose in view with that man," she said. "If only I had known of this when I met him."
"I wish I knew where he is to be found," said Sigrun. "All who are miserable and in trouble turn to him. There has been so little news of him since he left Applum. He must have hidden himself away in some place where no one knows his story."
That evening, when they spoke of Sven Elversson, Sigrun was up and dressed again. She had even been through into the next room. Lotta had moved out chairs and a table, and the great cauldron was hidden by the pink curtains. The housemaid had laid a tray with tea for Sigrun and Lotta, and they were comfortable as could be.
But when the maid asked if Mistress was not well enough now to move over into the house again, Sigrun answered quickly:
"I don't know what is the matter with me, Malin. But I think I am going to be really ill. I've a pain in my head and throat this evening. And I'm red all over my body. It must be something breaking out."
"Now, what does she mean by saying that?" thought Lotta. "She's perfectly well. And not a bit of red all over or breaking out."
She came to the conclusion that her friend was trying to make it appear impossible that she should spend Christmas in her own home. "What will come of it all?" thought Lotta anxiously. "Will she never get over this fear of her husband? Oh, but it was always like that with her. Once she is frightened of anyone, it is hopeless to try and calm her.
"And to think that she, who always wanted to be a nurse, doesn't go in now and look after him herself. She doesn't even ask how he is. It's a bad sign, that."
Lotta sat watching her friend. Sigrun looked weak and languid, as sick persons do after some days in bed.
"What unhappy fate is pursuing her?" thought Lotta. "Why should she, pure and innocent as she is, the finest, loveliest creature, sit here in a room little better than an outhouse?"
And indeed the contrast was striking enough—the delicate beauty of the young mistress and the bare wooden walls of the brewhouse, the rough plank floor and smoky ceiling.
"It's a sad pity about them both," thought Lotta. "It must be miserable for him, too, lying on a bed of pain and longing for her."
There was sadness in the air. After a while, Lotta saw how her friend covered her face with her hands and sat rocking to and fro.
"Oh, I wish I were dead!" she moaned. "It would be best. If only I could die."
"It is too dull and melancholy for you, Sigrun, to go on staying here," said Lotta. "I think you had better move over to the house to-morrow."
Sigrun started up; her face turned greyish pale.
"What do you mean?—what's that you say? Has he been bribing you?"
"Sigrun—you must be mad. How could you think of such a thing?"
"Mad—yes, Lotta. I am mad, maddened with fear. Oh, you don't know what I have suffered."
And she began to tell. Not much, but just enough to make Lotta understand. "And how can I go back to it all?" she said.
"But, Sigrun, it only shows how fond of you he is."
"I do not care for him," said Sigrun. "I have never, never been unfaithful to him, Lotta, mark my words; never in so much as a single thought. But he has never trusted me, and that hurts me. It hurts me more than anything else."
Lotta Hedman said something about jealousy being something that belonged to youth. It disappeared naturally as one grew older.
"No," said Sigrun. "Not with him. It is hereditary; all his family have been the same. He has promised me again and again to give it up. But what difference has it made? We moved up here into this wilderness, that he might be in peace. And you can see what we have gained by that.
"You think, perhaps, I have no pity for him? No one knows better than I do how he suffers. And he is going downhill, Lotta; his sermons are poor, and he is losing all interest. It is dreadful for him.
"But it is dreadful for me, too. I have been terrified. He has frightened me now so many times that I have no courage left. You would have to put me in chains to drag me in there now. But you can't understand."
"But—if you can't go back to him," said Lotta, "what are you going to do?"
The young mistress rose to her feet.
"Let us go to bed, Lotta," she said, with a bitter little laugh. "It is past ten o'clock, and you must be up early to-morrow to your work."
THE FLIGHT
NEXT day Sigrun lay in bed. She had a pain in her throat, she said. No one but Lotta was allowed to go in. And Lotta was charged to tell the Pastor that her mistress was likely to be ill for some time.
She lay in bed all that day. Not until after supper, when the servants had gone to bed, did she get up. Then she dressed, and came out to Lotta in the scullery.
"Do you feel better now?"
Sigrun smiled. "Yes, Lotta, much better."
It had been a hard day for Lotta. She was beginning to realize that Sigrun was preparing to leave her home. And she wondered what she could do to prevent such a disaster.
"I have been thinking," said Lotta. "It seems to me you ought to go home to Stenbroträsk for Christmas. It would be much better for you, and far more proper than staying over Christmas out here like this."
Sigrun did not seem altogether unwilling. She said no, at first, but when Lotta began to talk of the splendid Christmas they always had there, she appeared to think it worth considering.
They stayed up late again that night. Sigrun sat in silence, pondering over something she could not quite make out, and Lotta did not venture to disturb her.
A little after eleven, the door opened suddenly, and a woman stumbled into the room, took a step or two, and sank to her knees on the floor, holding out her hands.
"If there's any human soul here, help me!" she cried. "I'm so ill, so ill. I'm burning all over."
Sigrun's weakness and weariness were gone in a moment. She sprang to the stranger and helped her up, put one arm round her, and supported her.
"Come with me," she said gently. "Come over to the light and let me see what is the matter first."
The woman stood there shaking and trembling with fever. She could not lift her feet, but shuffled helplessly, and would have fallen but for Sigrun's aid.
Helping her over to the light, she saw that the woman's face was terribly swollen and disfigured. Dark breaking blisters close, close together all over. And the same with her hands.
"Lotta!" said Sigrun in a low, trembling voice. "What is it?"
But there was no need for Lotta to answer. Sigrun knew as well as she did what the sickness was.
She knew, too, that it was risking death to touch the poor vagrant, yet she began resolutely stripping off her clothes, and while Lotta Hedman made the bed ready, spreading clean sheets, cool and smooth for the hot and tender skin. Sigrun gave her clean linen underclothes, and soon they had the groaning, shivering woman stretched on the bed.
And there they sat, full of pity for her, while she moaned and writhed in pain. Sigrun tried to give her water, but she seemed unable to swallow. Then the mistress turned again to Lotta, and the two sat hand in hand, silent and horrified at the power of the dreadful disease.
Soon they breathed more easily; the sick woman seemed to be quieter now, and suffering less.
And a little later, a short hour since she had first entered, she was perfectly calm and motionless. The uneven breathing stopped.
The two friends rose, laid the dead woman out where she lay, and crouched together as before, close to each other, as if petrified by the terrible dead face.
"A few days, and I shall look like that"—the same thought was in the minds of both. "Look like she does now. No one would recognize me. No one could say who it was."
"Who can she be?" asked Lotta in a whisper. And Sigrun answered in the same low voice that it must be some poor vagrant with no home to go to.
"Her clothes were not so very bad," she went on. "But sadly worn. Her boots are wet and trodden through; she has tramped a long way through the snow. The sickness must have come upon her on the road, and she has wandered about over the country in delirium. It must have been the light from our lamp that made her come here."
Again they sat in silence, watching the dead. And now it was that a dreadful thought came to Sigrun.
"If I lay there in her place," she said to herself. "Why not? Why should I not manage it so that it is Sigrun Rhånge who lies there?"
It seemed as if Lotta Hedman had read her thought; she turned to Sigrun and stared at her in breathless fear.
"No one knows her," said Sigrun. Her voice was no longer low and whispering, but firm and decided. "No one knows where she comes from. No one can have seen her come in here. A poor vagrant without a home."
Lotta said nothing. She would not betray her suspicions. If Sigrun were not thinking of that after all, then it would be best to say nothing.
Sigrun went on as before:
"You know what it is, Lotta—the smallpox. And she lies dead in my bed, and the bed and the whole place will have to be disinfected; we shall not be able to stay here. We should have to move over into the house. And perhaps I may have caught it myself already, and die—if I did, all would be well. But I might get better, and then I should be back in all the old misery again."
"But it will be better now, after all you have gone through," said Lotta eagerly. "Your husband knows he has wronged you now. He will be more careful."
Sigrun rose, and moved the lamp into the other room.
"We must not disturb her," she said.
"You have so many happy years before you," said Lotta. "When you are both a little older, it will be calm and quiet for you again. And he is such a splendid man, clever and understanding."
Sigrun stood full in the light from the lamp, and Lotta was astonished at the change in her. In a moment she seemed to have regained all her former beauty, more. There was a splendour of majesty and power about her now. Lotta could not help feeling that Sigrun was something higher than others; that she must be loved and protected more than all others.
"Lotta," said Sigrun, "you see now that it was for this you were sent here from Stenbroträsk—to help me with this?"
This was speaking in a language Lotta understood. But she would not be won over so easily.
"Dear angel, it might be I was sent to hinder you," she said.
Sigrun made Lotta sit down in one of the wicker chairs, and then, kneeling at her feet, took her hands and said in a voice of earnest conviction:
"I promised Edward once that nothing but death should make me leave him. And that is why I have not gone away before. And all this week I have prayed to God that I might die rather than be forced to break my promise. Now, though I am in fear of him, and cannot stay, it has held me back. Lotta, you understand?"
Lotta nodded reluctantly.
"And now, Lotta, God has heard my prayers. He has sent Death to me. And so I can go without breaking my word. Lotta, surely should understand that this is God's will?"
"No more of this, Sigrun," said Lotta, trying to rise. But her mistress held her back.
"It is God Himself helping me, Lotta," she said. "Now I can go away without making Edward unhappy. Oh, I don't mean he would not mourn for me a year or two, perhaps, but it would be without bitterness. But if I ran away from him—do you think he would ever allow it? He would go out to search for me everywhere, and when he found me, he might kill me. Or if I got a divorce? It would be the death of him. But to go this way—out of life altogether...."
"It would only be a quiet sorrow. He could not be jealous of Death. Don't you see, Lotta, how much better it would be for him than anything else?"
"For him, perhaps," said Lotta. "But for you?"
"For me," said the young wife, with a smile that was like a light from heaven—"for me, all is good that is best for him."
"The best thing for him would be to keep you," said Lotta decidedly.
"But I cannot!" cried Sigrun despairingly. "You don't know what it means to be watched every hour, never to be free. You don't know what it is, with all these terrible scenes and quarrels and promises to be better, when it never is better, and ill-humour and misery. You don't know what it is to go in constant fear of something dreadful happening. To be always forced to lie and hide things, though you have done nothing but what was good and right. Oh, you don't know what it is like, or you would not ask me to go back."