oad, he
slowed down and brought out the letter. Instantly Brita put her
hand on his arm. "Don't read it!" she begged.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Never mind reading it; it's nothing."

"But how can you know?"

"It's a letter from me."

"Then tell me yourself what's in it."

"No, I can't tell you that."

He looked hard at her. She turned scarlet, her eyes growing wild
with alarm. "I guess I will read that letter anyway," said Ingmar,
and began to tear open the envelope.

"O Heavenly Father!" she cried, "am I then to be spared nothing?
Ingmar," she implored, "read it in a day or two--when I am on my
way to America."

By that time he had already opened the letter and was scanning it.
She put her hand over the paper. "Listen to me, Ingmar!" she said.
"It was the chaplain who got me to write that letter, and he
promised not to send it till I was on board the steamer. Instead he
sent it off too soon. You have no right to read it yet; wait till
I'm gone, Ingmar."

Ingmar gave her an angry look and jumped out of the wagon, so that
he might read the letter in peace. Brita was as much excited now as
she had been in the old days, when things did not go her way.

"What I say in that letter isn't true. The chaplain talked me into
writing it. I _don't_ love you, Ingmar."

He looked up from the paper and gazed at her in astonishment. Then
she grew silent, and the lessons in humility which she had learned
in prison profited her now. After all she suffered no greater
embarrassment than she deserved.

Ingmar, meanwhile, stood puzzling over the letter. Suddenly, with
an impatient snarl, he crumpled it up.

"I can't make this out!" he said, stamping his foot. "My head's all
in a muddle."

He went up to Brita and gripped her by the arm.

"Does it really say in the letter that you care for me?" His tone
was shockingly brutal, and the look of him was terrible.

Brita was silent.

"Does the letter say that you care for me?" he repeated savagely.

"Yes," she answered faintly.

Then his face became horribly distorted. He shook her arm and
thrust it from him. "How you can lie!" he said, with a hoarse and
angry laugh. "How you can lie!"

"God knows I have prayed night and day that I might see you again
before I go!" she solemnly avowed.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to America, of course."

"The hell you are!"

Ingmar was beside himself. He staggered a few steps into the woods
and cast himself upon the ground