own to her, every muscle of his face aquiver with grief, he said
in a husky voice:

"Go home to Gertrude, Mother Stina, and tell her that I have
betrayed her, that I've sold myself for the farm. Tell her never to
think more of such a miserable wretch as I."

GERTRUDE

Something strange had come over Gertrude that she could neither
stay nor control--something that grew and grew until it finally
threatened to take complete possession of her.

It began at the moment when she learned that Ingmar had failed her.
It was really a boundless fear of seeing Ingmar again--of suddenly
meeting him on the road, or at church, or elsewhere. Why that would
be such a terrible thing she hardly knew, but she felt that she
could never endure it.

Gertrude would have preferred shutting herself in, day and night,
so as to be sure of not meeting Ingmar; but that was not possible
for a poor girl like her. She had to go out and work in the garden,
and every morning and evening she was obliged to tramp the long
distance from the house to the pasture to milk the cows, and she
was often sent to the village store to buy sugar and meal and
whatever else was needed in the house.

When Gertrude went out on the road she would always draw her
kerchief far down over her face, keep her eyes lowered, and rush on
as if fiends were pursuing her. As soon as she could, she would
turn from the highroad, and take the narrow bypaths alongside the
ditches and drains, where she felt there was less likelihood of her
meeting Ingmar.

Never for a moment did she feel free from fear; for there was not a
single place in all the parish where she could feel certain of not
running across him. If she went rowing on the river, he might be
there floating his timber, or if she ventured into the depths of
the forest, he might cross her path on his way to work.

When weeding in the garden, she would often glance down the road,
so that she might see if he were approaching, and make her escape.
Ingmar was so well known about the place that her dog would not
have barked at sight of him, and her pigeons, that strutted about
the gravel walk, would not have flown up and warned her of his
approach with the rustle of their flapping wings.

Gertrude's haunting dread did not diminish, but rather increased
from day to day. All her grief had turned to fear, and her strength
to combat it grew less and less. "Soon I shall not dare venture
outside the door," she thought. "I may