Mor Elversson had forgotten all about seeing to the house now. Her husband's last words could mean but one thing--she had guessed rightly. "And do you know what's the news Pastor's coming to tell?" "I know something--yes." "Was it himself told you to read out all that in the paper for me to hear?" "Well, no. He was going to tell you himself, I take it. But I reckoned it was best you should know a little before he came, and be prepared." "And just as well," said his wife. "Well that I knew of it in time. I might have been forgetting myself and saying good-day and welcome before I knew, and been sorry for it after." Joel felt his anger increasing. "She'll spoil it all beyond mending," he thought to himself, "and it's all our future to think of. Eh, she'll never be wiser, only growing worse and worse for every year." "I fancy Pastor 'll be glad to hear you can talk so careless like about Sven. All one to you ... well, 'twill make it easier for him to say what he's got to say." "Easier? ..." repeated the woman, and her voice seemed harsher even than before. "What d'you mean by that?" "Why, it looks as if Sven's in trouble after all. That procession, when they came home, that was to be last Sunday, and so it was, as fine as could be. Next day, too, there was banquets and invitations and things--and then all of a sudden it stopped. They'd come back from the Arctic all right, but folk were beginning to say strange things about them. Ugly things." The woman's face set hard. "You mean to tell me he's done something wrong?" she murmured between clenched teeth. "Took down all the flowers and flags and stuff, and put a stop to everything. One day they could hardly make a way through the streets for folk crowding round to cheer the sight of them; and the next, those same folks ready to spit on them." Mor Elversson raised her head. "Well, I never heard ..." she cried. "I doubt it would have been better for him to have stayed with his own flesh and blood after all." "Remember," said her husband, speaking more forcefully now, "it's not the first time such things have happened away on expeditions like that. They were starving, and mad with hunger, and didn't rightly know what they were doing. And then one of them couldn't stand it any longer, and took and cut his throat, and after that, well ..." "Well? They ate him up, I suppose you mean?" She spoke the words coldly, without a trace of excitement. Her heart was full of bitterness and disgust. "They were no more accountable, really, than folk in a madhouse," said her husband. "And it says here in the paper they couldn't bring themselves to go on. Only started like." "And Sven was in it, too?" "When anything like that happens, they take good care all's in it. They made him do like the rest. But that was all."