"I am not trying to make you believe that it is only for his sake. I do it because I am miserable, and must free myself from my misery. Oh, Lotta, if only I could really die! I know that would be the best. But, next to that, the best thing is for me to disappear. I am going to pieces; it is driving me mad. Perhaps I am mad already." "But do you ask me to help you go away so that I shall never see you again?" said Lotta despairingly. She had not thought to speak of herself, but she felt driven to use every argument she could find. "Why should you not see me again, after a few years?" said Sigrun. "Listen, and I will tell you all my plan. I will go on foot the first few miles, till I come to a parish where no one knows me. There I can get a cart to take me to the nearest station. Then by train to Göteborg, and from there to America. There I can enter a training school for nurses, and then go to the war. You see, there is nothing impossible about it. And when a few years have passed, I can write for you." "Do not try to persuade me," said Lotta. "I should have to tell all sorts of lies, and I could never do it." With indescribable bitterness Sigrun answered: "I have had to lie every day since I was married." Lotta Hedman was overwhelmed; her heart was wrung with pity. "Let her have her will," she said to herself. And at the same time, she was so full of anxiety at what Sigrun was about to do that she began to weep. "God was willing to help me," said Sigrun, "but Lotta Hedman would not." "But, Sigrun," cried Lotta, dashing away a tear with the back of her hand, "will you force me to help you ruin yourself? You ask me to help you in something so dreadful that I tremble at the very thought. You will no longer have a name among the living. You will go out into the world without friends, or parents, without even being able to say where you come from. It will be misery if you succeed, and shameful and terrible if you are found out." But her words were of no avail. The young mistress was as firmly resolved as before. But she ceased begging and persuading now; she began to threaten. "Lotta, mark my words; if you will not help me as I ask, then to-morrow I go to the verger's to him who is waiting for me there." "You would never do that," said Lotta. "I would do anything. Anything but go back to the old life." Before Lotta could reply to this, something happened. There was a sound of footsteps approaching from outside--a cautious tread, but heavy and distinct. The sound did not stop at the entrance, but continued round the house. Once or twice again it was heard; then it died away. Sigrun made a sign to Lotta, who hurried to a window, drew aside the curtain, and looked out into the snowy-clear night. "It was the farm lad," she said. The beautiful woman drew herself up. Her eyebrows contracted, her head was raised, her eyes shot a furious glance at someone who was not there.