But the prophetess from Stenbroträsk did not seem to have expected such an effect of her words.
"It is all in my letter," she cried. "It shall be made known when I have atoned for my sin, and God lets my words be published abroad throughout the world."
There was a perceptible loss of interest among the listeners; evidently this woman knew no more than anyone else. Most of those who had risen sat down again.
And the end of her speech, the few words she uttered afterward were scarcely heard by any save the kindly woman sitting opposite, who had first spoken to her.
"And I have no time to write except at night," said the girl—"at night, when work is over, and then my fingers are stiff and unwilling, and I am not quick at writing properly. They talk differently in our parts. It makes me very tired, all the writing.
"And I live in poverty and wretchedness," she went on. "Poor and ill and alone, and living in a place where no one else would ever live, and I tremble to think of all that must come."
She had marked well enough that no one seemed to care any longer for her words. Her voice grew fainter, and there was a dreamy look in her eyes. At last she spoke only in a whisper, and lowered her glance. None but those nearest could hear what she said.
"But I pray to God to spare me, that I may live to be one among the purified host. I pray that I may be counted among that last third, and that I, who have been chosen to proclaim its coming when all despised me, may share in the Millennium of the Lord, and stand among the elect and see this earth resplendent in the glory of righteousness."
[THE WONDERFUL MUSIC]
THE long train from the north rolled on unceasingly from station to station. Those in the compartment where Lotta Hedman sat gradually got out: first the peasant and his wife, then the kindly woman who had got her to speak at first of who and what she was. Then there entered a man, who, by the look of him, might have been a lay preacher of some sort, and sat down in the comfortable corner. He had been in another part of the train before, and came now to find a better seat.