Margit bowed her head; she still sat with her hands folded.
"How earnestly I would pray him for forgiveness, if I only knew he would stay!" She was probably confounding in her mind the Lord and Arne.
The priest pretended he had not noticed this. "Do you mean to confess this to him at once?" he asked.
She looked down and said in a low tone, "If I dared wait a little while I should like to do so."
The priest turned aside to hide a smile, as he asked, "Do you not think your sin becomes greater the longer you delay the confession?"
Both hands were busied with her handkerchief: she folded it into a very small square, and tried to get it into a still smaller one, but that was not possible.
"If I confess about the letters, I am afraid he will leave me."
"You dare not place your reliance on the Lord, then?"
"Why, to be sure I do!" she said hurriedly; then she added softly, "But what if he should go anyway?"
"So, then, you are more afraid of Arne's leaving you than of continuing in sin?"