"Sigrun, how can you say such a thing!" exclaimed her husband. "This is Bohuslän, my own country, and I love every stone and every tuft of heather in it. What would you have said if I had spoken so about the pine forests and the moors of Norrland?" As was but natural, his words took effect. The young wife was silent at first for a while; then she whispered something, with tears in her voice, and Sven understood that she was begging her husband's forgiveness for having spoken so about his country. "I'm not like that other days, really. I don't know what can be the matter with me to-day," she said. Every word she uttered was a delight to hear; so solemnly and sincerely she spoke, with the slightest trace of a lisp in her voice. "God forbid she should be otherwise for my part," thought Sven. "Surely 'tis only beautiful that she should be afraid of all ugly things." Nothing more was said for a time, but then the little lady began again, with a strange quiver in her voice: "Edward, I know it's wrong of me to trouble you, but I can't help it. I am so afraid. I've been trying to overcome it by myself, but I can't--it won't go away. And then I just remembered that I shan't need to struggle against things all alone now--that I've you to help me with all my weakness." There was such a depth of entreaty in her tone that Sven Elversson felt embarrassed at sitting there where he could hear. He felt himself unworthy even to over, hear the thoughts and feelings of this delicate lady. She was trying now to explain to her husband that she was actually afraid. She fancied she had seen these hills somewhere before--had fled for her life among such a confusion of rocky hills, with some behind that sought to kill her. Or that there was someone even now lying in wait there, ready to fall upon them. Something terrible there must be, close at hand. She had but one desire, to get away from the place. Her voice told that she was in greater fear even than she would admit, and that this was deadly earnest. Sven Elversson himself could not help smiling where he sat, and the Priest was utterly unable to understand her fear of nothing at all; he tried to answer gaily, and pass it over with a jest. But his endeavours failed of their effect. She declared, with sudden violence, that if Applum were as cold and shut in as here, she could never live there. "And it's wicked and wrong of me to say so, I know," she said; "but I've been thinking of it all the time, while we've been driving here; if I cannot find something beautiful at the end of it, something to help me, I shall be haunted by the same fear there as well. I shall be dreading every day that something terrible will happen."