"I am afraid, my dear, you are giving way to a foolish fancy," said her husband. And the listener marked how he slipped into the admonitory tone of the preacher. "You must really try to overcome it before it has gone too far. And I think, really, I must ask you now to go and do as I said—go down to the post at once."
"But I can't!" she cried. "I can't—I can't!"
Sven Elversson knew, of course, that the Pastor was honestly acting for the best. But—he had thought he would have found some other way. Still, perhaps after all this was best. He himself would hardly have known what to do.
"Listen to me, Sigrun," said the Priest. "You must surely understand that it is childish to give way to such ideas. The only thing to do is to overcome it. You are well and strong; you will not tell me that you cannot walk that little way. Anyhow, I must ask it of you, for the sake of our happiness—if you wish it to last for life, and not for a few weeks' honeymoon only."
"I will go another time," she said, humbly, despairingly. "But—won't you let me off for to-day? I will try in a day or two; I will try to-morrow."
Sven Elversson stood listening yet a moment, anxious to hear if the request would be granted. But when the Pastor repeated that he must have his paper now, at once, Sven saw in a flash what he should have done before, but in his confusion had not thought of. Very quietly he opened the door and slipped out. He walked slowly until out of sight of the vicarage, and then set off at a run down to the post.
And so, when the young wife came walking slowly, so slowly, down the road, with tears on her eyelashes after what had passed, and trembling, half-unconscious, as if she had risen from a sick-bed, she had not to go many steps before a young man stepped up to meet her.
He greeted her politely, and said something about having driven with them from the station a few days back.
She made no answer, only stared at him, without understanding at first what he meant. He endeavoured to explain that he had been to the store; she fancied afterward he must have been going to say something about the storekeeper having asked him to take the paper up with him to the vicarage. He spoke softly, and with so much hesitation that she would have found it hard to understand him even had she been herself at the time.
He handed her a newspaper, which she took, but still she walked on, as if unable to realize that here was the thing she had been sent to fetch; that she could go back home now as soon as she pleased.