But the words were never spoken. Someone pulled the speaker by the sleeve.
"Sven Elversson is ill. He is dying. It has been too much for him."
The Pastor stepped down from his place and made his way through the crowd to where Sven Elversson had stood. He lay now on the grass, with his head on his mother's knee, not dead, but very ill. His breast trembled with the violent beating of his heart.
When the sick man saw the Pastor approaching, he greeted him with an indescribable smile, full of love and free from fear, as he might have greeted the one dearest to him of all. He tried to reach out his hand toward him, and murmured something either in thanks or asking pardon.
The Pastor knelt beside him; he, too, was filled with a great tenderness now, and anxiety at the thought of losing such a friend as Sven Elversson had now become.
"Sven Elversson, brother," he said. "Live! You must live now for her sake."
They carried the sick man in to the vicarage. A doctor who was present hastened to him. He examined the patient, and declared that he might live a little while—a day, a week, perhaps a year, but that was all.
Meanwhile, the crowd stood round the grave, waiting. They knew that Pastor Rhånge had had more to say; that he wished to tell them something that would give them peace and comfort at parting. They could not do without it now.
A messenger was sent in to the vicarage, and returned with the answer that the Pastor could not leave Sven Elversson now. He was sitting with his arm round the sick man, and nothing else could give him strength to live, or hinder the spark of life from dying out.