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."
"No," said Lotta--"no, angel dear, I did not know you had suffered like
that. You have never spoken of it until yesterday and to-day. But is
there no other way?"
Sigrun rose to her feet. "There is one way. And God has sent it. But
Lotta Hedman will not let me take that way."
Nothing could describe the torturing power of Sigrun's beauty as she
spoke such words as these. A witchery seemed to emanate from her being,
and she knew it, and never, perhaps, had she used it so mercilessly, so
victoriously as to-night.
"I am doing no wrong, Lotta," she said. "I am going to the war, to help
the wounded. That is my one desire. I am ashamed to stay at home doing
nothing. You know it is what I have longed for all my life. And God is
helping me, Lotta. Why will you not help me?"
What could poor Lotta Hedman say? She had never loved Sigrun as she did
this night. She resisted still, knowing that Rhånge came of a family of
suicides. Perhaps he would kill himself if he lost his wife. But she
dared not say anything of this to Sigrun; it might only increase her
fear of him.
"But you have your father and mother at home," was all she could find to
say.
"You forget the infection. I cannot go home to them now."
She went over to Lotta and made her sit down again in the chair.
"Lotta, I am so unhappy," she said. "Every day is an agony. Am I to
suffer like this all my life?"
"But, Sigrun, how can you bring this sorrow on us all?"
"Sorrow?" said Sigrun--"sorrow? What is it, after all, to sorrow for the
dead? What is it compared with sorrowing for the living? I must do it,
Lotta, for Edward's sake. Think what a man he was when I first met him.
Calm, happy, eager to make his way. A good preacher, and loved by his
congregation. Now--can you not see how he has changed? He is going to
ruin here in poverty and loneliness. I must leave him, Lotta. If I were
dead, he would find another place, another living, where he could rise
to all that he meant to do when he had the ill-fortune to meet me."
"You cannot make me see that you need do anything so dreadful."
Sigrun shrugged her shoulders.
"I am not trying to make you believe that it is only for his sake. I do
it because I am miserable, and must free myself from my misery. Oh,
Lotta, if only I could really die! I know that would be the best. But,
next to that, the best thing is for me to disappear. I am going to
pieces; it is driving me mad. Perhaps I am mad already."
"But do you ask me to help you go away so that I shall never see you
again?" said Lotta despairingly. She had not thought to speak of
herself, but she felt driven to use every argument she could find.
"Why should you not see me again, after a few years?" said Sigrun.
"Listen, and I will tell you all my plan. I will go on foot the first
few miles, till I come to a parish where no one knows me. There I can
get a cart to take me to the nearest station. Then by train to
Göteborg, and from there to America. There I can enter a training
school for nurses, and then go to the war. You see, there is nothing
impossible about it. And when a few years have passed, I can write for
you."
"Do not try to persuade me," said Lotta. "I should have to tell all
sorts of lies, and I could never do it."
With indescribable bitterness Sigrun answered:
"I have had to lie every day since I was married."
Lotta Hedman was overwhelmed; her heart was wrung with pity. "Let her
have her will," she said to herself. And at the same time, she was so
full of anxiety at what Sigrun was about to do that she began to weep.
"God was willing to help me," said Sigrun, "but Lotta Hedman would not."
"But, Sigrun," cried Lotta, dashing away a tear with the back of her
hand, "will you force me to help you ruin yourself? You ask me to help
you in something so dreadful that I tremble at the very thought. You
will no longer have a name among the living. You will go out into the
world without friends, or parents, without even being able to say where
you come from. It will be misery if you succeed, and shameful and
terrible if you are found out."
But her words were of no avail. The young mistress was as firmly
resolved as before. But she ceased begging and persuading now; she began
to threaten.
"Lotta, mark my words; if you will not help me as I ask, then to-morrow
I go to the verger's to him who is waiting for me there."
"You would never do that," said Lotta.
"I would do anything. Anything but go back to the old life."
Before Lotta could reply to this, something happened. There was a sound
of footsteps approaching from outside--a cautious tread, but heavy and
distinct. The sound did not stop at the entrance, but continued round
the house. Once or twice again it was heard; then it died away.
Sigrun made a sign to Lotta, who hurried to a window, drew aside the
curtain, and looked out into the snowy-clear night.
"It was the farm lad," she said.
The beautiful woman drew herself up. Her eyebrows contracted, her head
was raised, her eyes shot a furious glance at someone who was not there.
"He has done that every night," she said, "since I moved over here. It
is by his master's orders. He is watching. Listening to hear if I have a
lover with me."
Lotta said nothing. She was beginning to give up all further resistance.
"And you, Lotta; you think Edward will change? Well, there you can see.
Does he trust me now any more than before? Sending a boy to spy on me?"
She raised her voice as she spoke; the insult of her husband's suspicion
wounded every fibre of her being.
"It can never come right between them after this," thought Lotta. "He
has killed all the love that was in her. Perhaps it is best that she
should go."
And so it was that Lotta Hedman gave way before the sudden conviction
that Sigrun's love for her husband was dead or dying, though she would
not admit it herself--was not even, perhaps, aware of it.
Lotta protested no more. She did not assent in words, but she ceased to
oppose.
Some time passed in hasty preparations. Sigrun took off her rings and
borrowed a change of clothing from Lotta. A little underclothing and the
six hundred kronor she packed away in a leather bag, likewise belonging
to Lotta, who further had to provide a cloak and kerchief. It was
essential that nothing of Sigrun's own clothing should be missing.
When Sigrun was nearly ready, she turned suddenly to Lotta and stood
still.
"Lotta, you understand that all this has been brought about by the hand
of God? Do not fear either for me or for yourself."
Her courage and presence of mind were admirable in their way. She showed
not the least hesitation or fear.
But when all was ready, there came a hard moment at the last.
"I am leaving so much that is dear to me," she said. The tears flowed
down her cheeks; she seemed to realize at once the full seriousness of
the irrevocable step she was about to take.
"Now I shall never look at the little picture of Stenbroträsk again,
that comforted me so many times. And the locket with the portrait of my
little girl--I dare not take that either."
"That, at least, you might take, I think," said Lotta. "But you need not
go at all," she added.
"And, Lotta, you know there is one of the cows I was so fond of. Look
after her a little when you can."
She moved toward the door.
"Don't forget, Lotta, when my Christmas rose comes out, to put it on
Edward's writing-table."
Then she kissed Lotta Hedman for the first time, and went away.
Sigrun had not been gone more than a quarter of an hour when Lotta again
heard footsteps outside--a light, careful tread, not the heavy tramp of
the farm lad. The moment she heard it, she thought to herself: "What a
mercy! It is Sigrun come back again after all."
But no sooner had she drawn the bolt and opened the door than she found
herself face to face with a strange man. No wonder the poor girl was
terrified. Never in her life had she felt so sinful and
conscience-stricken as now.
"Eh, Lotta, Lotta," she thought to herself. "It is beginning already."
The fellow was poorly dressed, with a big slouch hat. Evidently, some
sort of a vagabond. "For Heaven's sake, don't come in here," said Lotta,
placing herself in his way. "We've smallpox in the house, and there's
one lying dead inside there."
The man did not make off at once, as Lotta had expected. He stood in the
doorway, looking round the room.
And before she could guess his intention, he had thrust her aside, and
strode across to the entrance of the little room beyond, looking in at
the bed where the dead woman lay.
But Lotta gave him no time for close observation. She rushed after him
and threw her arms about him, pulled him away, and closed the bedroom
door.
The man made no resistance. He seemed to think she was anxious to keep
him away from infection.
"It won't hurt me," he said. "I've got it already if I'm to have it. The
woman in there is my wife. She was taken bad a couple of days ago, and
this morning she was delirious and ran off."
It was evident that he was speaking the truth--and the whole of Sigrun's
plan was thus of no avail. Lotta felt as if the place were falling about
her ears.
"But--who are you, then?" she asked.
"I'm not exactly a stranger here," said the man in a calm, quiet voice.
"I'm a knife-grinder, and they know me here at the vicarage. I was here
only a week ago, doing the scissors and knives. I go about with my horse
and cart and grindstone from place to place, and I've not what you could
call a proper house of my own for nursing sick folk. When Ruth was taken
bad, I was going to get her down to a hospital, but then she ran away,
poor creature. I've been wandering about looking for her all day. I
wonder how she managed to get here."
Worse and worse. Lotta felt as if the ground beneath her feet were
giving way. But, in her confusion, she yet made one more endeavour to
save her friend.
"But it's not your wife lying there," she said. "It's my dear mistress."
"Eh?" said the knife-grinder. "The pretty mistress--is she dead? Did
they let her lie out here in an outhouse and die?"
"She wished it so herself," said Lotta Hedman.
"Why, then, I beg pardon for tramping in like I did," said the man.
"I'll have to be seeking Ruth somewhere else."
He was a little, withered man, with a dark skin and one shoulder
constantly thrust up, which gave him a look of sullenness and
discontent. Lotta remembered well that the last time he had been at the
vicarage he had been rude and troublesome. But now, in the presence of
sickness and death, he was quiet and humble.
To Lotta's great relief, he moved toward the door. But then he stopped.
There before him lay a pair of wet, downtrodden boots.
"But--these are Ruth's," he said. "What does this mean?"
Lotta's resourcefulness was at an end. She could find nothing for it now
but to tell him the truth.
Sigrun had reached beyond the church and cemetery of Algeröd, and was
just crossing the bridge over the little stream when she heard Lotta
Hedman's voice calling to her.
A moment later a sledge drew up beside her, and Lotta came forward and
told her what had happened, telling her, at the same time, that the
knife-grinder had promised to say nothing.
The man himself was sitting on the sledge, looking sullen and angry, but
he spoke as calmly and peaceably as before.
"It's this way," he said. "I don't like the fashion of it, having Ruth
put away and buried under another name. But I'll stick by what I've said
for the rest. Young mistress can get up in the sledge here, and I'll
drive her back to the vicarage, and nobody the wiser. I'll be as silent
as a stone wall."
Sigrun walked over to the man. She had tied a black kerchief round her
head, but now she thrust it back.
"And all for that, I'm to go back to my misery?" she asked.
The man seemed uneasy. He cast a hasty glance at her and looked away.
"She is dead. What does it matter in whose name she is buried?" said
Sigrun, in a voice trembling with desperation.
"I don't see it's acting fairly by Ruth," said the man stubbornly.
"No," said Sigrun. "It is not, I know. But do not think that I am going
back home after this. That I shall not do."
She pointed toward the river, gleaming darkly between the snow-covered
banks.
"I will go that way, if need be," she said.
She stood before him, firm and resolute. And the stem earnestness of her
face told him clearly enough that she would do as she said.
He turned his face away, as if fearing to look at her.
"I know she'd have a better sort of burial and all that," he said. "And
it's no great matter to me, after all, seeing she wasn't my lawful wife,
so to speak, though she'd been going about with me these two months. But
it seems to me ..."
Lotta gave a cry. Sigrun had hurried away, and stood now crouching by
the rail at the side of the bridge, trying to get under.
"For the Lord's sake!" cried the man, rushing toward her. "Don't go and
harm yourself! I'll do as you say."
"Remember, I will never go back to it all again," said Sigrun.
"No; you'll have no need. I'll keep silent all right."
"Sigrun is wonderful to-night," thought Lotta. "No one can resist her;
she does as she pleases with us all."
And indeed it seemed so. The little ill-humoured fellow could not do
enough for her.
"I haven't my proper cart with me to-night," he said. "I borrowed a
sledge this morning to go out looking for Ruth. But that'll make it the
easier, perhaps, for me to drive you on a bit of the way. It's not so
easy to go tramping in the snow for them that's used to sitting warm and
comfortable at home."
THE LONG DAY
THE day that had begun with Sigrun's flight from her home was, for many,
a sad and weary day--a day so long that it seemed as if it would never
reach an end.
So it was for Lotta Hedman. Coming back to the outhouse at three in the
morning, she found all as she had left it, and began as well as she
could to make preparations for what was to come. She gathered the dead
woman's clothes together, thrust them into the stove, with an armful of
wood, and burned all to ashes. Then she washed out the stove and drew
her curtains across, leaving all looking as it had done the evening
before.
Trembling and terrified, she went into the adjoining room where the dead
woman lay. She was not afraid of the dead, as a rule, but she felt it
here. Sigrun and she had sorely wronged the dead, and she could not
approach the bedside without a shudder. Nevertheless, she carried out
her plan--took out a sheet and laid it over the body, hiding it
completely, and with deep feeling read a prayer or two.
This gave her comfort. She felt now with certainty that the dead woman
was no longer an enemy to herself and her mistress, but their faithful
helper and ally, of whom she need have no fear.
Lotta endeavoured also to prepare herself for what she must say to those
in the house. She called to mind that no one had seen Sigrun all the
previous day; she could therefore say that her new illness had begun the
night before that. Sigrun had not wished a doctor to be sent for on her
account; she thought it was only a little rash breaking out, and nothing
dangerous. Then ... what was she to say next?
Lotta walked up and down the room, thinking it over. But after a while
she felt too weary and discouraged to move about, and sat down in a
chair instead. Soon this too seemed uncomfortable; she rose, and stood
leaning against a wall. At last she sank to the floor, close by the bed
where the dead woman lay, and stayed there so.
"I ought to go in to the Pastor," she thought. "I ought to wake the
servants." But she did neither, only sat still, repeating her
explanations to herself and turning them over every way.
"It will all be found out some way or other," she told herself. "And we
shall be miserable and shamed, both Sigrun and I. It is terrible to sit
and wait like this."
An unexpected comfort relieved her for a little while from her fears and
anxiety.
As she sat there on the floor, bowed down by dread of what was to come,
her soul took flight from her body, and, rising, hovered away into space
between the worlds.
Soon it had risen so far that Lotta Hedman could see earthly things in
their proportion; she saw now, not fragments of things, but things
themselves in their whole extent. Not merely a stretch of river and
stream, but the whole course of the waters from source to mouth. Not a
little corner of the forest only, but the mighty expanse of trees in its
whole extent. She could follow the line of a mountain chain from end to
end. Plains spread out beneath her, and the contours of the land showed
clearly marked against the glittering surface of the seas.
It was a beautiful and exalting sight, thought Lotta, but her soul did
not stop to watch; it rose still higher.
And soon it had reached a point in space from where it could see the
fates of mankind in their relation. Lotta could follow the wanderings of
men through the valley of life. And it passed in what seemed to her less
than seconds. She saw them enter life, go their brief way, and pass
again, out into the unknown. She saw her friend Sigrun on her journey,
and the way marked out for her, and the roads that crossed it.
She saw, too, the road which the woman lying dead beside her now had had
to traverse. A dark and poor and difficult way, and already it was
growing smoother, not smoothed, however, by a covering of darkness, but
vanishing in a gleam of light.
At the end of the road stood the dead woman herself, still looking back
over her course, that was now transformed into a ribbon of light, and
Lotta saw that the woman's spirit rejoiced.
The dead woman pointed to Sigrun's road, and to one of those that
crossed it.
"Look," she said, "the thing I longed for most of all in life is now
fulfilled by my death!"
And with these words, she vanished in a great splendour, so great that
Lotta's soul could not follow there, but must wait without.
And at once it returned to her body, and Lotta Hedman felt now relieved
from all her fear a while, believing that what had happened was
something that rightly should and must have happened so.
She retained this calm of mind until the door opened and someone asked
her if she knew it was half-past seven already.
At this Lotta tried to rise, but now her confidence was gone. She
thought of all the troubles that awaited her, and had not the strength
to get on her feet, but remained sitting.
The door closed again, no one entered, and for a few minutes she was
left in peace.
"It will all be found out very soon now," thought Lotta. "It must be."
And the shame that would come upon Sigrun and herself weighed her down.
A little later, the housemaid entered, with early breakfast for her
mistress.
She saw the lamp still alight, the wick smoking and nearly spent, the
room full of smoke and almost in darkness. She called out, but no one
answered. Then she realized that something must be wrong. She set down
the tray, struck a match, and discovered Lotta sitting in a heap beside
the bed; she saw, too, that the figure lying on it had a sheet spread
over, as over a corpse. She came closer, lifted the sheet a little, and
saw a pair of swollen hands.
At this Lotta came to life.
"For Heaven's sake, be careful. It is smallpox."
The girl dropped the sheet and started back.
And she it was who spread the news, telling the Pastor and the rest of
the household.
Lotta herself, protected as she was by the dread of infection, was
scarcely questioned at all.
A messenger was sent to fetch the verger, a man of strength and
authority, and he arranged everything as well as could be done.
He gave orders that Lotta Hedman should stay where she was on account of
the infection, and no one was to go near her. Even if the Pastor himself
were to send for her, she was not to go.
He and Lotta together laid the body in the coffin, which was afterward
carried away to a hastily dug grave.
No investigation was made, hardly a question asked. The vicarage was for
a time cut off from all the rest of the district. That the vicar's wife
should give out that she was dead while in fact still alive was a thing
too unheard of for any to suspect.
"It is that knife-grinder that has been going about the district these
last few weeks--he must have brought the infection over from Norway,"
was the general view. "His wife was ill, too, and ran away from him in
her delirium."
The doctor's words were also called to mind; the disease must have been
there before any knew of it.
And the longest and most agonizing day Lotta Hedman had ever known came
to an end without any discovery of what had been done.
Sigrun glanced now and again at the driver sitting on the edge of the
sledge. It was still dark night, and she could only vaguely distinguish
the outline of the figure--the broad-brimmed hat, the upraised shoulder,
the short nose, and the sullen mouth.
"It is not a man sitting there," she told herself, "but Death. I did not
know him when he came first, but I know him now. And who else could it
be? I have given myself up into his power. And he has come to fetch me
and carry me away to his own land."
They drove on over wide and desolate mountain tracts, covered with snow.
A few scattered, stunted trees and bushes here and there rendered the
barrenness of the country still more marked.
"It is the kingdom of Death," she said to herself.
And she, who had a while ago been so eager, active, and commanding, felt
herself now sinking into a quiet calm. The effort of will was at an end,
hopes and desires were gone.
It is dangerous, perhaps, for a mortal to make an ally of Death. For
Death may take it in earnest.
And Sigrun seemed really to feel a change taking place in herself. All
the links that bound her to her former life were being loosened one by
one.
Love of her husband, the sorrow and misery of her married life, had
filled all her thoughts before. But now, all this faded and disappeared.
A great void was where it had been, but no regrets, no bitterness.
"The dead must feel like this," she thought. "Thus it must be to be
freed from all earthly things. Love and sorrow disappear."
Little foolish things she had said as a child, and had been ashamed of
ever since, little offences that had troubled her long, little
humiliations she had never forgotten--all these vanished now in a
moment. Hereafter, she would think of these as things that no longer
concerned her.
She thought of her parents, and the help they had always given her--now
she would never have to trouble them again for aid. All was new about
her now; she was in another world. "They cannot reach me here," she
thought. "They have stood by me up to now, as far as they could. Now I
am gone from them for ever. I am driving into the kingdom of Death."
She was like a climbing plant, fastened with many threads to a trellis.
Now, one after another was loosed, and soon the whole growth would fall
to the ground.
"It must be like this to die," said Sigrun to herself. "It is not hard
or painful at all, only a deep rest."
Gradually it grew light. The man on the side of the sledge became once
more an ordinary vagabond, with a sullen, unkindly face. The landscape
was a stony, barren, poor, but altogether earthly tract, and Sigrun
herself awoke to life with its insistent demands for courage and
strength of mind....
The horse had had no rest all night, and they were going very slowly.
They had to halt for some hours at a peasant's hut to give the animal
food and rest. At last, however, they came in sight of a village where
there was an inn.
As they were thus approaching the end of their journey, the
knife-grinder turned to Sigrun.
"A man like me," he said, "going about the country all ways, sees many
strange things in his time. But I will say, this business to-night's the
strangest I've ever had a hand in."
"You think so?" Sigrun turned to the little dark man with a friendly
smile.
"I'll take my oath I've never seen nor heard the like. And I can't for
the life of me see what it was made me soft enough to help with it at
all. I can't make it out."
"Neither can I," said Sigrun. "But be sure you will never regret it."
"Why, as to that, you never know," said the man. "But, anyhow, I don't
like to let you go on now without knowing how you're going to manage,
and where you're making for."
"I am going to America," said Sigrun.
"It costs a heap of money to get to America," said the man.
"You surely do not think I should start on such a journey without
money," she returned.
At this the man pulled up, went to the horse, and began lifting and
fingering the harness.
"Well," he said, after a pause, "I've nothing much to do this way or
that myself. Might be best, perhaps, to drive past the inn here, and I
could take you on a few miles farther. There might be someone here that
knew you."
For the last half-hour Sigrun had been troubled by that very thought.
And the offer was welcome indeed.
"When I do a thing, I believe in doing it thoroughly," said the man,
taking his place on the sledge once more.
The next few miles, however, were toilsome. Again they had to stop and
rest and feed the horse. And soon they found that the snowfall in these
parts had been lighter than where they had come from; the going became
so bad after a time that they were forced to walk long stretches of the
way.
And time went on. It was nearly noon before they came within sight of
the second inn.
Just as they were near enough to distinguish the buildings, a man came
driving up with a milk-cart.
"You'd better be careful, Gustavsson," he called to the knife-grinder.
"They've telephoned up to the inn to be on the look-out for you. Say
you're carrying infection. Vicar's wife at Algeröd died last night of
the smallpox, and they say it's you and your woman brought it with you
from Norway."
Again they halted, and considered what was best to be done. At last they
decided to turn back. Neither cared to drive on to the inn; it was too
dangerous.
The knife-grinder suggested making to the eastward, up toward Dalsland.
"There's the railway runs from there to Göteborg, too, and nobody 'll
know you there."
They turned off accordingly, along a road running east, leading up again
through a wild and barren mountain tract.
The going was better here, but the poor beast was nearly spent. And
after a third halt for rest and food, it had come to the bottom of its
fodder bag.
The knife-grinder brought out some bread and butter and fell to. Sigrun
had nothing to eat with her, but she was not hungry.
Afterward, when she looked back on that day, she wondered at herself.
"It was strange. I was altogether calm, and felt nothing at all. No
uneasiness, no weariness, not even hunger. I knew all the time all would
turn out as it should. I was numbed, as it were, in a way, but I was
strong and able to hold out all the time. There must have been something
at hand, too, that helped me."
While on the long road up to the plateau she asked a question.
"Did you not say this morning that the woman who died was not your
wife?"
"I said so, yes. And it's the truth. She has a good husband and a decent
home, but she liked better to go off with me."
And Sigrun questioned him further; not that the matter interested her at
all--nothing in the world interested her that day. But talking made the
time pass more easily.
"She liked you more than her husband, then?"
"Well, I don't know rightly about that. She was married to a man named
Sven Elversson. Mayhap you've heard of him?"
Sigrun nodded.
"I thought at first she'd wearied of him because of--that old business,
you know," the man went on. "But after, I found out it was because she
thought he didn't care about her himself."
"She wasn't nice at all," said Sigrun. "And he only married her out of
pity."
"She was no beauty, that's true," said the man, "but she was a good soul
for all that. She was that sort that'd do anything for one they cared
about."
Despite her indifference, Sigrun could not help feeling uneasy at these
words. She asked no more about the woman.
"Do you know where Sven Elversson is now?"
"He lives at a place in Dalsland, called Hånger. A big place it was
once, but there's so many ugly things happened there that no one would
live in it, and it was let go to ruin. Sven Elversson bought it for next
to nothing. And he lives there now with only his old folks, now that his
wife's gone, but he's always taking in someone to help and look after,
children and poor folk, as many as he can have there."
Surely there must have been some strange influence at work
to-day--something affecting the vagabond knife-grinder as it had done
Sigrun. This man, whose habit it was to roam about the country growling
and cursing, a terror to all, was quiet and gentle now, and spoke well
of everyone.
They started off again, Sigrun sitting in the sledge, and the man on the
side as before, with his legs hanging down. Then suddenly he slipped,
and fell down in the road.
The horse stopped at once. The man picked himself up and climbed to his
seat once more. But a little after, he slipped off again.
"Queer," he said. "I don't know what's the matter with me. My head seems
going round."
Sigrun suggested he should sit in the sledge beside her. He did so, and
they drove on again. A little later, the reins fell from his hands.
"I must be ill," he said confusedly. "Going the same way as Ruth, by the
look of it."
But Sigrun hastened to reassure him.
"You have not slept all night," she said. "Sit there in the corner, and
let me drive while you sleep a little."
Again something seemed to give her courage. "He is not ill," it
whispered to her, "only tired out. There, he is asleep already."
When she had driven a little way, the horse stopped and refused to go
farther.
Sigrun shook her companion by the arm.
"Do you know if there is any place near where we can put up? The horse
is quite exhausted now, and it is getting dark already."
The man looked up, dull and heavy with sleep.
"Do you think it's the smallpox?" he asked.
"No, you are only sleepy," said Sigrun.
"It's the smallpox, I doubt, all the same," said the man.
But a moment after he pulled himself together.
"There's no help for it," he said resolutely. "There's a place a couple
of miles farther on--a 'vagabonds' hostel,' as they call it. We must try
to get on to there."
"We must find shelter somewhere," said Sigrun.
"It's the only thing we can do," said the man. "Though I'd rather have
kept from showing myself there again. We're across the boundary now," he
went on. "We're in Dalsland, and once we're over the next rise, it's
downhill the rest of the way. Turn off to the left at the cross-roads,
and drive on to the first house you see."
When at last Sigrun had got the horse up over the rise, she saw in the
fading daylight a broad landscape spread out before them, gently
sloping, and pleasant to see, with many lakes and long wooded ridges,
showing up clearly against the heavy, snow-laden air. The beauty of the
sight cheered her, and she drove on with renewed vigour, reached the
cross-roads, and turned off to the left.
Several times she had a view of the landscape first seen, but the
country seemed as uninhabited as before. At last, however, she sighted a
farmhouse just below. The house itself was fairly large, as if belonging
to a rich estate, but all the outbuildings were small and mean, little
better than any peasant's dwelling might possess.
She roused the sick man anew.
"Are we there now?"
"Yes," he answered, shaking off his drowsiness. "We're at Hånger now. I
never thought to come seeking shelter here again."
Sigrun gave a cry. "Hånger!" For a moment she felt like a shipwrecked
soul, with the waves already closing over her. "Hånger--that was where
you said Sven Elversson ..."
"Ay," said the man. "And I'd never have come here by choice, but there's
no help for it now."
"But--if he asked about his wife?"
"Why, I'll have to find something or other to say."
"That he should live here, of all places in the world," said Sigrun
despairingly.
"He took the place because it's lonely like, and far away from folk.
Ordinary people never come this way, but all sorts of tramps and
vagabonds and poor folk, they go to him."
Sigrun drove down a hill toward the house. And her despair passed from
her almost at once. Again the same numbness came over her, and something
whispered that there was no need to fear; all would go well.
Just at the entrance to the drive stood a little red-painted hut.
"Here it is. Just go in there," said the knife-grinder.
He roused himself.
"I'll drive up to the house and get the horse in," he said. "You can go
in meantime. There's nobody in the traveller's hut, it seems. You'll
find a key just down under the step."
Sigrun did as he said, and found herself in a little cottage divided
midway by a passage running through, with a room on either side. Both
rooms were arranged and furnished in the same manner. Bare walls, fixed
bedsteads with straw mattresses, a stove, a big, heavy table, and a few
heavy chairs. A bucket of water and a bundle of firewood were there, but
there were no pillows, no sheets, cooking-pots or plates, no towels or
washing basins--nothing that could be taken away. A great cupboard stood
in one of the rooms, but the key was not in the lock.
It was not altogether cold in the rooms; there had evidently been a fire
there during the day. And they were clean and well aired.
"I must try to light; a fire," thought Sigrun.
While she was busy with this, the knife-grinder entered. He could hardly
stand upright. Without a word, he threw himself on a bed, and in a
moment was fast asleep.
"I do not think he is ill," said Sigrun to herself. "He will be all
right when he has had a night's rest. No need to call for help."
She lit a fire in the other room also, and sat down before it, thinking
over her plans. Suddenly she realized that she was tired--she was indeed
nearly falling from her seat. Also, she was hungry. "I ought to have
brought some food with me," she murmured. And then, suddenly, she
remembered her bag. Where was it? It was not in the room. She must have
left it in the sledge.
She hurried out. The sledge was standing outside, and the bag was there.
She picked it up, and was just going back into the house when a voice
hailed her.
"Is that you, Ruth?"
Darkness had fallen quickly. She could vaguely distinguish the figure of
an old, bowed man, slowly approaching.
"Do not come near us," she cried; "we are infected."
"I know," answered the man. "We had a telephone message to-day, but I
never thought you would come back here again. Well, well, needs must,
they say, when the devil drives."
"This must be Joel Elversson," thought Sigrun--"Sven Elversson's father.
He is grown old and weak; he takes me for his son's wife."
"Sven is not at home to-day," said Joel in his solemn way. "But we will
receive you, Ruth, I and Thala, as he would have done if he had known
you came here in need and in peril of death. Here is the key of the
cupboard. You know where to find all you need there. And we will bring
down food for you and set it outside the door."
He handed her a small key, which she took without a word. He did not
seem to expect any answer.
"There's none here bears any grudge against you, Ruth," he said. "We
know what it was that made you go. Make yourself as easy as you can, and
sleep in peace."
He walked away, and Sigrun hurried into the house. In the cupboard she
found pillows and sheets--all that was needed for the night. And,
shortly afterward, food was brought.
Sigrun took a part of it and set it in the next room for her companion,
then, barring her door carefully, she ate something herself, and went to
bed.
"I must have a few hours' sleep now," she thought. "And then I can go on
again. I must get away from here before anyone learns who I am."
Almost before she had framed the thought she was fast asleep.
MORNING
THEN Sigrun awoke, a little ray of red winter sun was shining into the
poor chamber where she lay. She had slept, not for a few hours only, but
the whole night through. She made haste to get up and set the room in
order before going on her way.
The rest had strengthened her; she felt well and resolute now, and
without regret for the step she had taken. The only thing that troubled
her now was her fear lest she might be discovered. If only she could get
away from Hånger without any one learning who she was, she felt sure
the danger would be past.
Again she found a tray of food outside her door, and with it a paper, on
which was written:
"We understand that you are remaining here, since the man has gone away
alone. Do not doubt but that you will be welcome."
She went into the room opposite, and saw that her companion had indeed
gone. It was one more source of anxiety removed. She was rested now, and
would far rather go on foot than drive in his sledge. All she need do
was to ask her way to a town where she could get a proper conveyance. It
could not be far to the nearest railway station; she could be in
Göteborg that evening.
She fastened the black kerchief round her head, put on Lotta Hedman's
cloak, and, taking up her bag, prepared to start.
Before leaving the room, however, she opened her bag to see if the money
and other things were safe. Then she gave a cry of dismay. The six
hundred kronor were gone.
She felt in the pocket of her cloak, and in her dress. The money was not
there.
She understood at once that they had been stolen. The knife-grinder had
taken them out of the bag while it was in the sledge.
She staggered to a seat. This was a terrible blow. She could not go to
America now. All roads were barred. Oh, Heaven!
She bowed her head on the table and tried to think. Yes, she had told
the man yesterday that she had money. And he perhaps had been thinking
all along how he could get hold of what she had. Tired and exhausted as
he was, he had yet been able to carry out his plan.
And in so doing he had rendered life impossible for her.
"It is a hard world to go out in for one that is poor and alone," she
thought. "A hard world."
She felt not exactly penitent; but she realized now the utter
impossibility of accomplishing her purpose.
"I might go out as a beggar on the high road," she thought. "But what
would be the good of that? I did not leave my home to be an
adventuress."
To return home seemed equally impossible. How could she tell her husband
that she had given herself out as dead in order to escape from him? It
was impossible--not to be thought of.
She knew that for the time being she was among good people. Should she
ask them to help her? Again the same difficulty arose. She would have to
confess her deceit, her shame. And these honest souls would feel
compelled to inform her husband at once that she was alive.
"It was no fancy, after all, that of yesterday," she told herself. "It
was Death that sat beside me on the sledge. And Death will not release
one who has once given herself into his hands."
"But he is not a hard master," her restless thought went on. "He loosed
the bonds that held me to earthly things, and in a gentle way. Why
should I not trust him now?"
And so she remained sitting at the table for about an hour, trying to
familiarize herself with the thought of death.
"God will be merciful," she said. "He knows all. He knows I did not mean
harm to any one. And He knows that this is the one way open to me now."
Just then someone entered the room. But Sigrun did not move. It was
utterly indifferent to her now, whoever saw her. Her decision was taken,
and she knew what she had to do.
She lay still bowed over the table with her face in her hands, and could
not see who had come in. The step, however, told her that it was a man,
and not an old, but a young man.
"It is Sven Elversson himself," she thought.
She heard him approaching her at first; then he drew back. He went to
the stove, lit a fire there, and returned to the table where she sat.
"Is it so hard for you, Ruth?" he said. "Let me send some of the
children to you. Is there nothing here that you might be glad to see
again?"
At these words she raised her head, and turned toward him, with a look
of fixed despair.
"I am not the one you thought to see," she said. "I am Sigrun Rhånge,
wife of the vicar of Algeröd."
Sven Elversson drew back a step or two. But he had so trained himself to
preserve the same calm, whatever news might be brought him, that he did
not even utter a cry. Only his face turned pale. But his confusion was
evident from the fact that he began thinking aloud.
"Sigrun Rhånge is dead," he said. "She died the night before last. When
I heard she was dead, I went to Algeröd myself, to see her once more
for the last time, but it was too late. She was already laid in her
coffin and buried in her grave."
Sigrun sat gazing at him. There was a solemnity of grief in his words
that almost touched her. She was convinced that he was unaware of having
spoken aloud.
"Would it were so," she said in answer to his thought. "Would that
Sigrun Rhånge were truly dead and in her grave."
"Sigrun Rhånge is dead," he repeated in a low, monotonous voice, still
unable to collect himself. "I shall never see her again on earth."
"Yes," she agreed. "We may surely say that Sigrun Rhånge is dead. But
I, unhappy creature that I am, I am living yet."
Something within him seemed to grasp the inner meaning of all this
quicker than thought, and set his heart in fierce commotion. His cheeks
flushed, and his eyes glittered.
He came toward her, took her hand and held it in one of his, while the
other stroked her cheek with a swift, momentary touch. He seemed trying
to convince himself that it was indeed a living woman here before him.
"You, alive!" he said, and his voice rose to a cry of joy, only to sink
next moment to a low, gentle tone. "You here, in my house! What does it
mean?"
There was much in his manner that astonished her. But at the same time,
it gave her a little courage. Here at least was one who did not look on
her misfortune with cold indifference.
"You wrote so kindly to your wife this morning," she said. "And I have
always heard so much good of you. Will you help me now? I am in the
greatest need that ever any could be."
The tears flowed from her eyes. And in her extremity, her desperate need
of help, she threw herself on her knees before him.
He did not help her to rise at once. Instead, he laid one hand on either
shoulder, and bent over her, his face almost touching her.
"You helped me once," he said, "when I was in my sorest need. Do you not
think I should be glad to repay you that a thousand times, if
it were in my power?"
Suddenly he checked himself, and, regaining calmness, moved quietly away
from her and drew up a chair.
"Will you not tell me how all this came about?"
She stood up beside him, and began hesitatingly:
"There is so much to say. I hardly know how to begin." For a moment she
was on the point of giving way to tears, but restrained herself. "We
were not very happy in our marriage, my husband and I."
He did not seem to notice that she was standing while he was seated. But
he understood that she needed help to tell her story.
"My wife was not happy either," he said.
He rested one elbow on the table and leaned forward so as to cover his
eyes.
Sigrun understood that he was encouraging her to go on.
"There's been talk about us here and there, I dare say," she continued.
"If you were in Algeröd yesterday, no doubt you heard about the scene
with the man who was staying with us...."
"Yes," he said, "I heard that and more. But there was no ill-will in
what was said. Only sorrow--nothing but sorrow."
His voice was almost a sob. He felt the old fierce pain once more. It
hurt him beyond words to speak to her like this, when his one desire was
to lay his head in her lap and tell her of the sorrow that had racked
him the day before and the misery of this morning, when he learned that
his wife had come back now--now that his heart longed only to be left to
its sorrow for another.
"And no one doubted that I was dead?" asked Sigrun.
"No," he said. "No one doubted that you had died of the smallpox."
She grasped his arm hastily.
"You--you do not know who it was that died. It must have been ..."
She stopped, with open mouth, not daring to go on.
"Was it my wife?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I think it must have been ... your wife."
Sven Elversson said nothing, but rose and walked across the room.
Now Sigrun in her turn sank down on a chair. "Death," she
thought--"Death will not let me go. I had forgotten that the dead woman
was Sven Elversson's wife when I asked him to help me."
She sat crying quietly, and pulling at a handkerchief. The eerie,
drowsy, death-like feeling came over her again.
A few moments later, Sven Elversson came back to the table and sat down
in the same position as before.
"Now tell me everything," he said.
And she obeyed. She told him all that had passed from the moment when
the strange woman had come to her door, until now, when she herself sat
in the vagabonds' hostel at Hånger.
He listened with all his soul, and was filled with sorrow for the
desperate thing she had done, and all the misery she had brought on
herself. He understood better than she did herself that, as she was, all
ways in the world were closed to her now. That if she stayed in this
world at all, she must be condemned by her own act to endless unrest,
endless anxiety, endless penitence and shame.
But despite his sorrow and deep sympathy for her, he could not repress a
feeling of rejoicing in himself, that repeated over and over again: "At
least she is alive. And she has come to you. Sits here beside you,
talking to you. What does all the rest matter now that she is alive?"
Sigrun had long finished her story, and Sven Elversson sat silent,
thinking what to say, what must be done. And watching him as he sat, she
felt clearly that such a man as he could do nothing else but send her
back to her husband. "This man cannot be led to any wrongful deed," she
thought.
"And so it has all been in vain," she told herself. "All to no purpose.
Death will not let me go."
She looked her fate bravely in the face. And she made no attempt to
influence Sven Elversson by speaking of what she had resolved.
"This is a big thing," he said, and was surprised to find himself
talking to Sigrun just as he did to others whom he helped. "But the one
thing clear to me at the moment is that you must not go about the
country now carrying infection. You will have to stay on here at Hånger
for a time."
She looked up at him. It was so simple, and she had never thought of it.
A few days' respite at least. The thought of death slipped aside.
"There is no one here but my father and mother," he went on. "And I do
not think they will be afraid. But I forgot, there are some children
staying here too, that I took in a while ago. But we can send them down
to the village. And then we can shut up the place to travellers for a
while. You can move over to the house and have one of the guest rooms to
yourself."
"And after?" she asked almost harshly.
He bowed his head, and tried to think. Because he loved her, he could
read her thoughts, and he knew that his answer now meant life or death
to her.
He could find only strength to say:
"It must be in the hand of God."
"I cannot drive her to despair," he thought to himself; "but it may be
that her own mind will change. Her love for her husband may wake anew.
Surely all will go well, all will come right in time."
She understood that this was only a respite, but she gave a sigh of
relief.
"The way I look at it is this," he said. "It is never well to lie, and
hide things. There's no denying that. But then, again, it is not well to
torture a creature to death. That's no less true. But the heart may
change. Or, better, may become itself again. And then it will be easy,
all that seems so difficult now. May I not believe that?"
She shook her head decisively, but said nothing.
"Nay, let us believe it," he said. "Let us trust to that. And now you
will not mind if I tell my father and mother all about it. They are not
the sort to tell more than they should. And then we will try not to make
this more hard and serious than we need. Just think that it will all
come right again in time."
Sigrun felt as if he were playing with her. At any other time his manner
would have annoyed her, but now it was indescribably soothing and
comforting. She felt as if this man had taken all her burden, all her
trouble and misfortune, on himself, to bear it in her stead.