"I wish I could help her," she said, and was very near to weeping again. "For I know she is good and kind, really. She loves to help and comfort old people, and the poor, when they are in trouble, but she must not do that now, and that is almost the worst thing of all. And she may not sit in the pew that belongs to her home in church, though she likes best to sit there, because it is just in the choir, and a little above the rest, so she can see out over the congregation."
Sven Elversson thought of the little pew in Applum church, set aside for the family of the incumbent; it stood a little higher than the others, and one had a view of the rest of the church from there. "But how can I tell her," he thought, "that her husband is jealous? It would only hurt her. Perhaps it will pass over. Better that she should not know."
He turned the vessel now, and made for home. It was as well that her husband should find her there when he came back from church.
And in his pain at not daring to help her—perhaps to turn her thoughts from her own trouble—he pointed to a rocky island far to the west.
"That is Grimön," he said. "That is where the fellow they call Sven Elversson lives. You've heard of him, maybe?"
She nodded. "Yes, I have heard about that—the whole story."
She seemed inclined to let the matter end there, but suddenly she added a few words that made an end of the little happiness Sven had felt that morning.
"You've heard, of course, that the schoolhouse he built over by the church was burnt down last night?"
"Burnt down!" he cried. And in consternation he loosed his hold of the tiller, so that the sail was flung over and the boat nearly capsized.
"Yes," said Fru Rhånge, with perfect calmness, "burnt down to the ground. And a good thing, too!"