s well.

"You lying here?" says he. "Why didn't you answer?"

"I couldn't," she answers, and her voice so hoarse he can scarcely
hear.

"What--you been in the water?"

"Yes. Slipped down--oh!"

"Is it hurting you now?"

"Ay--it's over now."

"Is it over?" says he.

"Yes. Help me to get home."

"Where's ...?"

"What?"

"Wasn't it--the child?"

"No. Twas dead."

"Was it dead?"

"Yes."

Axel is slow of mind, and slow to act. He stands there still. "Where
is it, then?" he asks.

"You've no call to know," says she. "Help me back home. Twas dead. I
can walk if you hold my arm a bit."

Axel carries her back home and sets her in a chair, the water dripping
off her. "Was it dead?" he asks.

"I told you 'twas so," she answers.

"What have you done with it, then?"

"D'you want to smell it? D'you get anything to eat while I was away?"

"But what did you want down by the water?"

"By the water? I was looking for juniper twigs."

"Juniper twigs? What for?"

"For cleaning the buckets."

"There's none that way," says he.

"You get on with your work," says she hoarsely, and all impatient.
"What was I doing by the water? I wanted twigs for a broom. Have you
had anything to eat, d'you hear?"

"Eat?" says he. "How d'you feel now?"

"Tis well enough."

"I doubt I'd better fetch the doctor up."

"You'd better try!" says she, getting up and looking about for dry
clothes to put on. "As if you'd no better to do with your money!"

Axel goes back to his work, and 'tis but little he gets done, but
makes a bit of noise with planing and hammering, so she can hear. At
last he gets the window wedged in, and stops the frame all round with
moss.

That evening Barbro seems not to care for her food, but goes about,
all the same, busy with this and that--goes to the cowshed at
milking-time, only stepping a thought more carefully over the
door-sill. She went to bed in the hayshed as usual. Axel went in twice
to look at her, and she was sleeping soundly. She had a good night.

Next morning she was almost as usual, only so hoarse she could hardly
speak at all, and with a long stocking wound round her throat. They
could not talk together. Days passed, and the matter was no longer
new; other things cropped up, and it slipped aside. The new house
ought by rights to have been left a while for the timber to work
together and make it tight and sound, but there was no time for that
now; they had to get it into use at