It was an injustice to the child to let him be entered as fatherless. If he should be a weak and sickly man, how could she take the responsibility of depriving him of the advantages of birth and riches? The child’s mother had noticed that there is generally great joy and excitement when a child comes into the world. Now it seemed to her that it must be hard for this baby to live, whom every one pitied. She wanted to see him sleeping on silk and lace, as it behoves a count’s son. She wanted to see him encompassed with joy and pride. The child’s mother began to think that she had done its father too great an injustice. Had she the right to keep him for herself? That she could not have. Such a precious little thing, whose worth it is not in the power of man to calculate, should she take that for her own? That would not be honest. But she did not wish to go back to her husband. She feared that it would be her death. But the child was in greater danger than she. He might die any minute, and he was not baptized. That which had driven her from her home, the grievous sin which had dwelt in her heart, was gone. She had now no love for any other than the child. It was not too heavy a duty to try to get him his right place in life. The child’s mother had the farmer and his wife called and told them everything. The husband journeyed to Borg to tell Count Dohna that his countess was alive, and that there was a child. The peasant came home late in the evening; he had not met the count, for he had gone away, but he had been to the minister at Svartsjö, and talked with him of the matter. Then the countess heard that her marriage had been declared invalid, and that she no longer had a husband. The minister wrote a friendly letter to her, and offered her a home in his house. A letter from her own father to Count Henrik, which must have reached Borg a few days after her flight, was also sent to her. It was just that letter in which the old man had begged the count to hasten to make his marriage legal, which had indicated to the count the easiest way to be rid of his wife. It is easy to imagine that the child’s mother was seized with anger more than sorrow, when she heard the peasant’s story. She lay awake the whole night. The child must have a father, she thought over and over again. The next morning the peasant had to drive to Ekeby for her, and go for Gösta Berling. Gösta asked the silent man many questions, but could find out nothing. Yes, the countess had been in his house the whole summer. She had been well and had worked. Now a child was born. The child was weak; but the mother would soon be strong again. Gösta asked if the countess knew that the marriage had been annulled. Yes, she knew it now. She had heard it yesterday. And as long as the drive lasted Gösta had alternately fever and chills. What did she want of him? Why did she send for him?