"Is it now something about Arne again?" he inquired, as though they had often talked together about him.
"Heaven help me!" said Margit; "it is never anything but good I have to say of him, and yet my heart is so heavy." She looked very sad as she spoke.
"Has that longing come back again?" asked the priest.
"Worse than ever," said the mother. "I do not even believe he will stay with me until spring comes to us here."
"And yet he has promised never to leave you."
"True enough; but, dear me, he must manage for himself now; when the mind is set upon going, go one must, I suppose. But what will become of me?"
"Still I will believe, as long as possible, that he will not leave you," said the priest.
"Certainly not; but what if he should never be content at home? I would then have it on my conscience that I stood in his way. There are times when I think I ought to ask him myself to go away."
"How do you know that he is longing now more than ever?"
"Oh, from many things. Since midwinter he has not worked out in the parish a single day. On the other hand, he has made three trips to town, and has stayed away a long while each time. He scarcely ever talks now when he is working, as he often used to do. He sits for hours by the little window up-stairs, and looks out over the mountains in the direction of the Kamp gorge; he sometimes stays there a whole Sunday afternoon, and often when it is moonlight, he sits there far into the night."