Sigrun had made a cushion for his rocking-chair, and the fringe at the bottom had come loose in one or two places. He had tried to mend it himself, sewing with coarse thread and big stitches. He held it up now to show--clumsily done it was, but he could not entrust the work to any other hand. Sigrun's mother offered to take it up with her to her room and mend it properly. He allowed her to do so, but held the cushion long in his hands, turning it over and over, before he could let it go. The dearest treasures of all, Sigrun's two plain rings and one other ring, and one or two little gold trinkets, he had put away in a little leather bag. "I carry that about with me all day in my waistcoat pocket," he said. "And at night it is under my pillow. It never leaves me night or day." Sigrun's mother was moved to deep sympathy. She saw how his sorrow was tearing at him, threatening to rend him asunder. And she understood that he strove against it in the presence of others, tried to be as he had been, but could not, and that it was this which made such discord in his being. She sat down on a sofa and beckoned him to her. "Come and sit down by me," she said in a gentle, motherly voice. "And tell me all your trouble." At this he broke out into violent weeping. "I don't know," he cried--"I don't know what is to become of me. I can find nothing in life, now that Sigrun is gone. "She is gone," he said again, "and yet I cannot feel that she is dead. To me it seems as if she had gone from me because she was afraid of me. "I could not make her happy, but it was only because I loved her so, beyond all bounds or reason. I wanted her all to myself. And I hemmed her in and shut her off from everything. And now it tortures me beyond measure that I let her suffer. If I had known she was going to leave me so soon, I would have kept myself in check. What would it have mattered if I had perished, as long as she was happy in her brief earthly life? "I know they say she died of the smallpox. But I dare not believe that was it. And I dare not ask how it was that she went. I dread to hear that she died because I had made her so unhappy that she could not stay with me." Sigrun's mother sat still and let him give vent to his feelings. She was not surprised at anything he said, for she knew, being old, that no human being ever stood beside the grave of a loved one without being torn by remorse and the pangs of conscience. A LETTER A FEW days later, Lotta Hedman came in to the Pastor in his study in the middle of the day. She had a letter in her hand, and stared straight before her; her hair was as smooth as Lotta's hair could ever be, and her brow was clear as if Heaven had opened above her and shed over her something of its glory.