"See there," said the man, handing across the paper to his wife. "List of those saved. Here it is. 'Sven E. Springfield.'" "Yes, yes. 'Sven E. Springfield'--it's there, right enough." "And that can't mean anything but Sven Elversson Springfield," Joel went on. "His own name, mine, and his foster-father's. There's no mistake about that." Mor Elversson crushed the paper close. At that moment she felt that the son she had given up to others of her own free will was dearest of all her children. "Why didn't you say straight out at once that Sven was there?" she said, reproachfully. "I wasn't listening. Now you'll have to tell it all over again." Joel seemed somewhat at a loss. He had thought to tell her the whole story before saying a word about Sven; it would have been easier so. Then he could have seen how she took it, and acted accordingly. However, he must tell her now. And he went on to explain all she wished to know. What was meant by the eightieth degree of latitude, for instance. And she listened, growing eager on her son's behalf for the honours to be won, and thinking surely he and his comrades must have reached farther than any before them. And what had they lived on after the ship had gone down with all their stores? The story of how the relief expedition had found them that summer, on the shores of Melville Island, had to be repeated over and over again. "Oh, what he must have had to go through in all that time!" she exclaimed. "No, 'tis a wicked thing to give away one's own child to strangers." "But he's made his fortune now, I suppose," she went on, relieved. "And they'll give him a host of medals and orders and all." Soon she began to wonder how the boy had been received in England on his return. "Millions of people came out to see them," said Joel. "'Arctic explorers' homecoming.'" He felt ill at ease, anxious, and in fear. All their future depended on how he framed his words now; if he could say the thing as it must be said. "If only we could have been there too," said his wife. "If I could but have stood at a street corner and seen him go by." "No need for you to have stood at street corners," said Joel. "It says here there was a special steamer for parents and relatives to meet them." The look of joy faded suddenly from her face. "Eh, Joel," she sighed. "Little good it would have been if we'd been there. They'd never have let you nor me go on that steamer boat. _She_ wouldn't have let us." "_She_" was Mor Elversson's word for the English lady that had taken away her son. She had never forgiven her for forbidding her son to write to his parents. And in her thoughts this stranger woman had become a monster. "I doubt but they'd have let us see him, all the same," said Joel.