"Well, as to the letters, that wasn't quite right. Keeping back what belonged to your son, can't be justified. But it was still worse to make a fellow Christian appear in a bad light when he didn't deserve it; and especially as he was one whom Arne was so fond of, and who loved him so dearly in return. But we will pray God to forgive you; we will both pray."
Margit still sat with her hands folded, and her head bent down.
"How I should pray him to forgive me, if I only knew he would stay!" she said: surely, she was confounding our Lord with Arne. The Clergyman, however, appeared as if he did not notice it.
"Do you intend to confess it to him directly?" he asked.
She looked down, and said in a low voice, "I should much like to wait a little if I dared."
The Clergyman turned aside with a smile, and asked, "Don't you believe your sin becomes greater, the longer you delay confessing it?"
She pulled her handkerchief about with both hands, folded it into a very small square, and tried to fold it into a still smaller one, but could not.
"If I confess about the letters, I'm afraid he'll go away."
"Then, you dare not rely upon our Lord?"
"Oh, yes, I do, indeed," she said hurriedly; and then she added in a low voice, "but still, if he were to go away from me?"