"And I have done nothing," said Sigrun. "Lotta, I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking, that was all. And he was sitting in the next room, watching."
Suddenly she turned deathly pale, and would have fainted, but Lotta dashed water in her face, and she came to herself.
Lotta made haste to wash the cut on her head, and saw it was neither deep nor serious; but what troubled her most was that Sigrun seemed hardly to be quite clear in her mind. She talked all the time, repeating the same thing over and over again.
"And I have done nothing," she said. "I have done nothing wrong. We were just talking. And he was sitting in the next room, watching."
"Oh, I know, Sigrun—I know you have done no wrong," said Lotta, addressing her now familiarly, as in the old days.
"You understand, Lotta, I know," said Sigrun again. "I have done nothing...."
Lotta tried to interrupt her.
"Sigrun, I'm so afraid you will be ill," she said. "We must ask Malin to get your bed ready, and you can lie down."
But at this, the flow of words suddenly stopped.
"No, not there! I will never go back to him," said the sick woman quite briefly and dearly.'