"Ingmar," said Gertrude, in a tone that finally made him understand that she had something very important to tell him. "When Elof lay sick at the Ingmar Farm, he must have used that very pillow." She took the parcel from Ingmar and opened it. Then she counted out twenty crisp, new bank notes, each of which was a thousand-krona bill. Holding the money in front of his eyes, she said: "Look, Ingmar! here's every krona of your inheritance money. It was Elof, of course, who hid it in the pillow!" Ingmar heard what she said, and he saw the bank notes--but he saw and heard as in a daze. Gertrude placed the money in his hand, but his fingers would not close over it, and it fell to the ground. Then Gertrude picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Ingmar stood there, reeling like a drunken man. Suddenly he raised his arm, clenched his fist tight, and shook it, just as a drunken man might have done. "My God! My God!" he groaned. Indeed, he wished that he could have had a word with our Lord, could have asked Him why this money had not been found sooner, and why it should have turned up now when it was not needed, and when Gertrude was already lost to him. The next moment his hand dropped heavily on Gertrude's shoulder. "You certainly know how to take your revenge!" "Do you call this revenge, Ingmar?" asked Gertrude, in dismay. "What else should I call it? Why didn't you bring me this money at once?" "I wanted to wait until the day of your wedding." "If you had only come before, I'm sure I could have bought back the farm from Berger Sven Persson, and then I would have married you." "Yes, I knew that." "And yet you come on my wedding day, when it's too late!" "It would have been too late in any case, Ingmar. It was too late a week ago, it is too late now, and it will be too late forever." Ingmar had again sunk down on the stone. He covered his face with his hands and wailed: "And I thought there was no help for it! I believed that no power on earth could have altered this; but now I find that there was a way out, that we might all have been happy." "Understand one thing, Ingmar: when I found the money, I knew at once that it would be the kind of help to us that you say. But it was no temptation to me--no, not for a second; for I belong to another." "You should have kept it yourself!" cried Ingmar. "I feel as if a wolf were gnawing at my heart. So long as I believed there was no other course open to me, it wasn't so bad; but now that I know you could have been mine, I can't--" "Why Ingmar! I came here to bring you happiness." Meanwhile, the folks at the house had become impatient, and had gone out on the porch, where they were calling: "Ingmar! Ingmar!"