She sat down on a sofa and beckoned him to her.
"Come and sit down by me," she said in a gentle, motherly voice. "And tell me all your trouble."
At this he broke out into violent weeping.
"I don't know," he cried—"I don't know what is to become of me. I can find nothing in life, now that Sigrun is gone.
"She is gone," he said again, "and yet I cannot feel that she is dead. To me it seems as if she had gone from me because she was afraid of me.
"I could not make her happy, but it was only because I loved her so, beyond all bounds or reason. I wanted her all to myself. And I hemmed her in and shut her off from everything. And now it tortures me beyond measure that I let her suffer. If I had known she was going to leave me so soon, I would have kept myself in check. What would it have mattered if I had perished, as long as she was happy in her brief earthly life?
"I know they say she died of the smallpox. But I dare not believe that was it. And I dare not ask how it was that she went. I dread to hear that she died because I had made her so unhappy that she could not stay with me."
Sigrun's mother sat still and let him give vent to his feelings. She was not surprised at anything he said, for she knew, being old, that no human being ever stood beside the grave of a loved one without being torn by remorse and the pangs of conscience.
[A LETTER]
A FEW days later, Lotta Hedman came in to the Pastor in his study in the middle of the day.