“I have wept for the lad every day since he went away,” continued the poor woman. “If he’s there among ye why doesn’t he stand up and say so, for I shouldn’t know him again.” Silence. The woman slowly went her way. To the first person she met afterwards she related her experience. “I thought until now I’d go out of my mind if my son did not come back,” she said, “but now I thank my God that he’s not among those skeletons!” The militia-men rested a week at Mårbacka, and then went on, somewhat strengthened. But they had left the bloody flux in their wake. Everyone on the place became desperately ill. All recovered save Grandmother’s two little children, who were of too tender an age to resist the virulence of the sickness. When the two children lay in their coffins, Grandmother said to herself: “If I had done like the others, if instead of harbouring those men I had driven them away with stones, my little ones would have been alive now.” But as that thought crossed her mind, she remembered her vision of that evening in the spring wherein the wolves carried off the children. “Our Lord is not to blame,” she said. “He forewarned me.” The loss of the children was not due to her act of mercy, but rather to her thoughtlessness in not having taken proper precautions to guard them against contagion. When she realized that after all it was her own fault the children were gone, her grief was overwhelming. “I shall never get over it,” she said. “I can never be the same again.” Her despair was increased by her fears for the husband--how would he take the loss of their children? He had not been at home in several months. The old despondency had perhaps come over him again, so that he dared not come home. Where he was then she did not know; so could not even send him word of what had happened. Anyway, he would surely regard the death of his children as a visitation from God for his marrying her, and never come back. She was not so certain but he would be right in this. It were best perhaps they never met again. All on the place were much concerned about her. What to do to help her they did not know. But Long-Bengt, who was the oldest of the servitors, was not afraid to act sometimes on his own responsibility. He set off for Kymsberg one morning in quest of the master. This time he was not two whole days getting back. He actually found the Paymaster of the Regiment and stated his errand. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the master ordered a fresh horse put to the chaise. They drove all night without a stop, and reached Mårbacka in the morning. Now the husband was not glum and difficult when he came. He took his wife tenderly in his arms, dried her tears, and spoke loving words of comfort to her. It seemed as if then for the first time, when seeing her so crushed and sorrowful, was he able to reveal the full depth of his love. “And I thought I should lose you, too!” she said.