His face was marked with suffering. It was not only the broken leg that caused him pain. "She will come back of her own accord, once she is strong again," said Lotta hastily. The sick man sighed. "She will never come back to me," he said. "Never to me. She will never have the courage to come back." Lotta Hedman had not thought she could ever feel any pity for the man who had destroyed her beautiful dreams as a girl. But now she tried, at any rate, to comfort him. "Oh, surely, happiness will come to the house again," she said. And she had really no thought of separating man and wife. She did, indeed, all that lay in her power to reconcile and reunite them. When the doctor came, late in the afternoon, he said much the same about Sigrun as Lotta had done: she was not suffering from any actual disease, but would get well if only she were left in peace. Her nerves had been upset, and a sort of crisis had occurred. They would have to be careful with her. She must not be contradicted, nor allowed to exert herself. She must not be persuaded to do anything but what she wished. "I can't quite make out this case," said the doctor. "Possibly, it may be something quite different. Fru Rhånge might, for instance, have contracted some sort of infection, and have the germ of some disease in her now, to break out suddenly and seriously later on. But I cannot say for certain just at present." These words of the doctor's were of great service to Lotta afterward; several of those at the vicarage had been present at the time, and heard what he said. And she herself was surprised when she thought of it, and believed he must have been directed from above to speak as he did. A whole week passed without any change. Every day a messenger came stealing over from the verger's and was sent back without having gained his end. Each day Lotta was sent for by the vicar to report. And each day Sigrun lay dozing from morning till evening. Afterward, when Lotta thought of this continuous sleep, she told herself that there must have been something within that knew what was to come. "It was not because she was tired and worn out that Sigrun slept so; no, she was just gathering strength for what she had to do." Even when she was awake, Sigrun lay quiet and still. She would draw her eyebrows together, and nod her head now and again, as if agreeing to something she herself proposed. Lotta was convinced that she lay there making plans for the future, but as yet she had no knowledge of them. One day Sigrun asked her to go across to the house and fetch some money--six hundred kronor--from a drawer in her bureau. "It is all my own," she said. "I have saved up all the money father and mother gave me on my birthdays. You can understand I am anxious about it now, with no one about in the house all day."