Sven Elversson made a gesture as if to indicate that he would rather hear no more of this. But Sigrun went on: "I saw your wife at Applum, and I remember she was very plain to look at. Perhaps it was this, or perhaps something else that annoyed you, for Mor Thala says you spoke to her unkindly; more so than you had ever done to anyone else. 'If I came to you and asked you to be my wife,' you said scornfully, 'then we should see how much you respected me yourself.' And she neither blushed nor paled, but her face went ashen gray, and she stood up. 'You say that to me in jest and without meaning,' she said. 'But if ever you asked me in earnest, it would be the happiest day of my life.' And that seemed to touch you, and a couple of years after, you married her in reality, because her answer then had shown you she was a good and noble woman." "True, she was good and noble," said Sven Elversson. "I must do her justice. It was strange that she should be willing to marry a man like me." "Mor Thala has told me," went on Sigrun, "that it was she who advised you to move out here to Hånger. She knew the place, and knew it was all going to ruin, so you could buy it for next to nothing. She made peace about you, looked after your business, sold timber, I think it was, so that you should have money enough to live on, arranged all things in your home so as to answer more or less to the habits and needs of your upbringing, and she took in all those in need whenever you found them, and looked after them until you could find them work elsewhere. Do you not think that woman loved you?" "No," said Sven Elversson. "I think she was trying to love me. She fought against all that she disliked in me, but at last it was beyond her power to go on, and then she went off with Gustavsson." "It was not so," said Sigrun--"not that way at all. That was not why she went. But she knew you loved someone else. You had betrayed it somehow or other. There is a book of poems that is always on your table. Mor Thala says you often read in it, but only one of them all, an Icelandic love song, by Bjarni Thorarensen." Sven Elversson sprang to his feet, and clutched at his breast. "What do you mean?" he cried, almost threateningly. Sigrun lifted her hand. "I wanted to talk to you about your wife," she said. "I shall be gone to-morrow," she added appealingly. He sat down once more, humble and resigned. But his eyes had lost their wonted brightness; they looked at Sigrun solemnly and sternly. The listener bent forward in tense eagerness. He recognized Sigrun's voice, but there was much in her manner that was strange to him. There was something about her now, a calm self-possession, a mature womanliness, that she had not had before. "She has gone through much since I last saw her," he thought. "She never had that power of control over one who spoke with her before. No one can resist her now."