anxious and reluctant.

On coming to the gravelled yard in front of the jail he saw a guard
on duty and asked him if this was not the day that Brita Ericsson
was to be discharged.

"Yes, I think there is a woman coming out to-day," the guard
answered.

"One who has been in for infanticide," Ingmar explained.

"Oh, that one! Yes, she'll be out this forenoon."

Ingmar stationed himself under a tree, to wait. Not for a second
did he take his eyes off the prison gate. "I dare say there are
some among those who have gone in there that haven't fared any too
well," he thought. "I don't want to brag, but maybe there's many a
one on the inside that has suffered less than I who am outside.
Well, I declare, Big Ingmar has brought me here to fetch my bride
from the prison house," he remarked to himself. "But I can't say
that little Ingmar is overpleased at the thought; he would have
liked seeing her pass through a gate of honour instead, with her
mother standing by her side, to give her to the bridegroom. And
then they should have driven to the church in a flower-trimmed
chaise, followed by a big bridal procession, and she should have
sat beside him dressed as a bride, and smiling under her bridal
crown."

The gate opened several times. First, a chaplain come out, then it
was the wife of the governor of the prison, and then some servants