"Why Ingmar! I came here to bring you happiness."
Meanwhile, the folks at the house had become impatient, and had gone out on the porch, where they were calling: "Ingmar! Ingmar!"
"Yes, and there's the bride, too, waiting for me!" he said mournfully. "And to think that you, Gertrude, should have brought all this about! When I had to give you up, circumstances forced me to do so, while you have spoiled everything simply to make me unhappy. Now I know how my father felt when my mother killed the child!"
Then he broke into violent sobs. "Never have I felt toward you as I do now!" he cried passionately. "I've never loved you half so much as I do now. Little did I think that love could be so cruelly bitter!"
Gertrude gently placed her hand on his head. "Ingmar," she said very quietly, "it was never, never my meaning to take revenge on you. But so long as your heart is wedded to the things of this earth, it is wedded to sorrow."
For a long while Ingmar sat motionless, his head bowed. When he at last looked up, Gertrude was gone. People now came running from the farm to find him. He struck his clenched fist against the stone upon which he sat, and a look of determination came into his face.
"Gertrude and I will surely meet again," he said. "Then maybe it will be altogether different. We Ingmarssons are known to win what we yearn for."
THE DEAN'S WIDOW
Everybody tried to dissuade the Hellgumists from going to Jerusalem. And toward the last, it seemed as though the very hills and vales echoed the plea, "Do not go! Do not go!"
Even the country gentlemen did their best to get the peasants to abandon the idea. The bailiff, the judge, and the councilmen gave them no peace; they asked them how they could feel sure that these Americans were not imposters; for they had no way of knowing what sort of folk they would be getting in with. In that far Eastern country there was neither law nor order; there one was always in danger of falling into the hands of brigands. Besides, there were no decent roads in that land—all their goods would have to be transported by means of pack-horses, as in the wild forests up North.