"Look here, Sigrun," said her husband, "you must tell me what all this means. We must talk this over seriously, that's clear."
Sven Elversson was at a loss to know what to do. He had already heard too much, perhaps; it would make matters worse to let them know he had been there. He walked to the door, but turned back again. He was always in doubt now as to how to act. It would be hard to find a man so undecided and lacking in self-confidence.
"I didn't want to tell you about it," said the young wife, speaking breathlessly and impatiently as before, "for I know it's nothing really. Only something that comes over me as soon as I go outside the house. Not anything I can see or hear, but something that makes me feel miserable and sorry for myself. It is cruel to think that I must go about here always, and never get away; I feel as if I had been condemned for some crime. It is just that—to feel myself condemned to stay for ever in one place, the same little, narrow, monotonous, cheerless place."
"Now I know," thought Sven to himself, "she is only saying this so that he shall say something beautiful in return, as he did before. And the Priest's a man with the heart and head to set her right again—'twill be easy enough for him."
"Oh, if only one could look out and see far away—if only I were not buried here, in a hole, and had not that wall of hills all round. But it must be a punishment for something I have done, or I should not have come here. Oh, can't you say something to help me?"
Now it must come, thought Sven. Now surely he would say some beautiful thing. And it would be fine to see how he would help her again this time.
Truth to tell, Sven Elversson was perhaps not sorry to be standing where he could hear all this. The young wife's voice was very sweet. And he was sure the Priest would say something wonderful now; something inspiring and good to hear.
"I have tried again and again," she went on, "to go out. But I can't. You can't think what it is like. I feel as if I were choking; I feel it here in my throat. And I've cried——"
"But there is nothing," said the Pastor. "Surely, Sigrun, you must know that. There is nothing in the air here that we cannot see. It is all imagination."
"There is! There is something here—I can feel it. Something that hates me, and is trying to take away my happiness. Do you know what I have been doing lately? I go and look at that poor little picture of Stenbroträsk, that one of my cousins did for me—I laughed at it then. But now, when I have looked at it a little, the river and the house and the big rowan trees by the gate, it seems to give me courage enough to go on living."