Truth to tell, Sven Elversson was perhaps not sorry to be standing where he could hear all this. The young wife's voice was very sweet. And he was sure the Priest would say something wonderful now; something inspiring and good to hear. "I have tried again and again," she went on, "to go out. But I can't. You can't think what it is like. I feel as if I were choking; I feel it here in my throat. And I've cried----" "But there is nothing," said the Pastor. "Surely, Sigrun, you must know that. There is nothing in the air here that we cannot see. It is all imagination." "There _is_! There is something here--I can feel it. Something that hates me, and is trying to take away my happiness. Do you know what I have been doing lately? I go and look at that poor little picture of Stenbroträsk, that one of my cousins did for me--I laughed at it then. But now, when I have looked at it a little, the river and the house and the big rowan trees by the gate, it seems to give me courage enough to go on living." "I am afraid, my dear, you are giving way to a foolish fancy," said her husband. And the listener marked how he slipped into the admonitory tone of the preacher. "You must really try to overcome it before it has gone too far. And I think, really, I must ask you now to go and do as I said--go down to the post at once." "But I can't!" she cried. "I can't--I can't!" Sven Elversson knew, of course, that the Pastor was honestly acting for the best. But--he had thought he would have found some other way. Still, perhaps after all this was best. He himself would hardly have known what to do. "Listen to me, Sigrun," said the Priest. "You must surely understand that it is childish to give way to such ideas. The only thing to do is to overcome it. You are well and strong; you will not tell me that you cannot walk that little way. Anyhow, I must ask it of you, for the sake of our happiness--if you wish it to last for life, and not for a few weeks' honeymoon only." "I will go another time," she said, humbly, despairingly. "But--won't you let me off for to-day? I will try in a day or two; I will try to-morrow." Sven Elversson stood listening yet a moment, anxious to hear if the request would be granted. But when the Pastor repeated that he must have his paper now, at once, Sven saw in a flash what he should have done before, but in his confusion had not thought of. Very quietly he opened the door and slipped out. He walked slowly until out of sight of the vicarage, and then set off at a run down to the post. And so, when the young wife came walking slowly, so slowly, down the road, with tears on her eyelashes after what had passed, and trembling, half-unconscious, as if she had risen from a sick-bed, she had not to go many steps before a young man stepped up to meet her. He greeted her politely, and said something about having driven with them from the station a few days back.