"Or perhaps Applum's too dull and ugly a place for you to care to go out at all. Her ladyship doesn't care to take the air unless there are fine houses and big estates all round. Perhaps I had better order the carriage, so that——"
"Edward!" she cried.
"Oh, I know there's nothing here to compare with your own place," he went on, with a little ill-tempered laugh. "But I didn't think you were too proud to set foot to the ground in Applum, for all that."
"Edward, it isn't that at all. I can't go just now."
"You can't go?" asked her husband, with an air of profound astonishment.
All this had passed before Sven had time to think. "I ought not to hear," he said to himself. And to make his presence known, he rattled the handle of the door, opened the door itself and closed it again, stamped his feet and coughed. But no one seemed to notice, and the two in the next room went on again.
"No, I can't," repeated the young wife. "There is something in this place that stifles me; I can't breathe. It isn't just longing for home, but something more. I am well and happy enough as long as I keep to the house, but as soon as I go out it comes over me again."
She spoke passionately, flinging out her words in broken snatches.
"But, Sigrun," said the Priest, "what is the matter with you? I meant no harm."
"I'm not so proud, indeed I'm not," she cried. "Ask any of those at home, and they'll tell you it was never my way to be so. And it's not because the place is not pretty to look at that I can't bear to go out. No, it is something else—if only I knew what it was!"