you had only come before, I'm sure I could have bought back the
farm from Berger Sven Persson, and then I would have married you."

"Yes, I knew that."

"And yet you come on my wedding day, when it's too late!"

"It would have been too late in any case, Ingmar. It was too late a
week ago, it is too late now, and it will be too late forever."

Ingmar had again sunk down on the stone. He covered his face with
his hands and wailed:

"And I thought there was no help for it! I believed that no power
on earth could have altered this; but now I find that there was a
way out, that we might all have been happy."

"Understand one thing, Ingmar: when I found the money, I knew at
once that it would be the kind of help to us that you say. But it
was no temptation to me--no, not for a second; for I belong to
another."

"You should have kept it yourself!" cried Ingmar. "I feel as if a
wolf were gnawing at my heart. So long as I believed there was no
other course open to me, it wasn't so bad; but now that I know you
could have been mine, I can't--"

"Why Ingmar! I came here to bring you happiness."

Meanwhile, the folks at the house had become impatient, and had
gone out on the porch, where they were calling: "Ingmar! Ingmar!"

"Yes, and there's the bride, too, waiting for me!" he said
mournfully. "And to think that you, Gertrude, should have brought
all this about! When I had to give you up, circumstances forced me
to do so, while you have spoiled everything simply to make me
unhappy. Now I know how my father felt when my mother killed the
child!"

Then he broke into violent sobs. "Never have I felt toward you
as I do now!" he cried passionately. "I've never loved you half so
much as I do now. Little did I think that love could be so cruelly
bitter!"

Gertrude gently placed her hand on his head. "Ingmar," she said
very quietly, "it was never, never my meaning to take revenge on
you. But so long as your heart is wedded to the things of this
earth, it is wedded to sorrow."

For a long while Ingmar sat motionless, his head bowed. When
he at last looked up, Gertrude was gone. People now came running
from the farm to find him. He struck his clenched fist against the
stone upon which he sat, and a look of determination came into his
face.

"Gertrude and I will surely meet again," he said. "Then maybe it
will be altogether different. We Ingmarssons are known to win what
we yearn for."

THE DEAN'S WIDOW

Everybo