She was very happy to feel that she could confide in him, as in none other, and thought that she must tell him of all that had happened to her since they last talked together. "I must tell you that it was rather hard for me the first weeks at Närlunda," she began. "But you mustn't speak of this to your mother."
"If you want me to be silent, I'll be silent."
"Fancy! I was so homesick in the beginning that I was about to go back to the forest."
"Were you homesick? I thought you were glad to be with us."
"I simply could not help it," she said apologetically. "I understood, of course, how well it was for me to be here; you were all so good to me, and the work was not so hard but that I could manage with it, but I was homesick nevertheless. There was something that took hold of me and wanted to draw me back to the forest. I thought that I was deserting and betraying some one who had a right to me, when I wanted to stay here in the village."
"It was perhaps—" began Gudmund, but checked himself.
"No, it was not the boy I longed for. I knew that he was well cared for and that mother was kind to him. It was nothing in particular. I felt as though I were a wild bird that had been caged, and I thought I should die if I were not let out."
"To think that you had such a hard time of it!" said Gudmund smiling, for now, all at once, he recognized her. Now it was as if nothing had come between them, but that they had parted at the forest farm the evening before.
Helga smiled again, but continued to speak of her torments. "I didn't sleep a single night," said she, "and as soon as I went to bed, the tears started to flow, and when I got up of a morning, the pillow was wet through. In the daytime, when I went about among all of you, I could keep back the tears, but as soon as I was alone my eyes would fill up."
"You have wept much in your time," said Gudmund without looking the least bit sympathetic as he pronounced the words.