She looked at him with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in his proper place. But she must have seen again something of the magic crown about the boy’s head, for she had patience with him. He meant nothing. He had to talk as he did. He was not like others. “Ah,” she said, indifferently, “there are not so many, Petter Nord. There has hardly been any one in earnest.” But now there came another turn to his advantage. In her suddenly awoke the eager hunger of a sick person for compassion. She longed for the tenderness, the pity that the poor workman could give her. She felt the need of being near that deep, disinterested sympathy. The sick cannot have enough of it. She wished to read it in his glance and his whole being. Words meant nothing to her. “I like to see you here,” she said. “Sit here for a while, and tell me what you have been doing these six years!” While he talked, she lay and drew in the indescribable something which passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But by some strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened and vivified. Nevertheless she did get one impression from his story. It took her into the workman’s quarter, into a new world, full of tumultuous hopes and strength. How they longed and trusted! How they hated and suffered! “How happy the oppressed are,” she said. It occurred to her, with a longing for life, that there might be something for her there, she who always needed oppression and compulsion to make life worth living. “If I were well,” she said, “perhaps I would have gone there with you. I should enjoy working my way up with some one I liked.” Petter Nord started. Here was the confession that he had been waiting for the whole time. “Oh, can you not live!” he prayed. And he beamed with happiness. She became observant. “That is love,” she said to herself. “And now he believes that I am also in love. What madness, that Värmland boy!” She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her. She had not the heart to spoil his happy mood. She felt compassion for his foolishness and let him live in it. “It does not matter, as I am to die so soon,” she said to herself. But she sent him away soon after, and when he asked if he might not come again, she forbade him absolutely. “But,” she said, “do you remember our graveyard up on the hill, Petter Nord. You can come there in a few weeks and thank death for that day.” As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson. He was walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer. To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he sought him out. But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith had not told him everything. He was serious, but at the same time he certainly was madly happy. “Has Edith told you why she is dying?” said Halfvorson.