It was some relief to him, in a way, that his wife laid stress on little details such as this. He needed time to collect his thoughts before he could break the news to her. All their future depended on how it was said and taken; he told himself this again and again, as if to urge his mind to the effort. "Never believe it!" cried the woman, stubbornly, with a toss of her head. "When she never so much as let him write a line all these years. And I doubt but he's little thought for us, anyway. Nine years old he was, when he went away, and sense enough, if he'd cared, to write without her knowing. But it's plain enough; she's put it into his head how we were common folk, and not the sort for a little young gentleman to be asking about." All her joy was gone and vanished now; the thoughts that had plagued her so often in the past came back with renewed force. "I'll admit," said her husband--"I'll admit it's a strange thing Sven shouldn't have written a single word to us all that time. And it may well be 'twas their fault that wouldn't let him. I heard something up at the church to-day." The woman said no word. She was too sick at heart to speak. "This is going badly," said Joel to himself. "If she's in that humour, there's little hope anyway." "The Pastor's had news from England," he said aloud. And now again he was touching on a matter he had thought to leave until his wife was more prepared, and in the mood to take it better. But there seemed no help for it now. "Pastor asked me to go along home with him. 'Twas he that gave me the newspaper here." "The Pastor?" "Yes. Wanted to talk to me about Sven." "Huh! What do I care! 'Tis all the same now, the way he's turned out." Joel made no reply to this, and they sat for a long time in silence. At last the woman burst out violently: "I never knew the like of you for making a poor body curious. What was it Pastor's heard from England?" "It was news of Sven. And Pastor's coming himself to tell you about it this evening." The woman sprang to her feet. "Pastor himself--coming here! Well, of all the wonders.... And you sitting there and never said a word of it till now!" She took a pace toward the house, thinking to look round and see that all was clean and in order. Then suddenly she stopped. "What's he coming here for?" she said. "There must be something wrong." She cast a keen glance at her husband, as if trying to look into his mind and read the thoughts within. "Maybe Sven's turned softer now," she said, "after being up there in the ice and chewing bits of hide. Maybe he's wishful to come and see us, after all. But, mark my words, this time _I_ say no! If we weren't good enough for him before, we're no better now." "Be careful of your words," said her husband, warningly. "You never know but you might be sorry after." He felt a growing anger toward her for speaking so violently, and taking the whole thing differently from what he would have done himself.