won't make it any easier."

He turned and drove in on the church grounds. The service had not
yet started; and many persons were sitting in the grass and on the
stone hedge, watching the people arrive. The instant they saw
Ingmar and Brita they began to nudge each other, and whisper, and
point. Ingmar glanced at Brita. She sat there with clasped hands,
quite unconscious of the things about her. She saw no persons,
apparently, but Ingmar saw them only too well. They came running
after the wagon, and did not wonder at their running or their
stares. They must have thought that their eyes had deceived them.
Of course, they could not believe that he had come to the house of
God with her--the woman who had strangled his child. "This is too
much!" he said. "I can't stand it.

"I think you'd better go inside at once, Brita," he suggested.

"Why, certainly," she answered. To attend service was her only
thought; she had not come there to meet people.

Ingmar took his own time unharnessing and feeding the horse. Many
eyes were fixed upon him, but nobody spoke to him. By the time he
was ready to go into the church, most of the people were already in
their pews, and the opening hymn was being sung. Walking down the
centre isle, he glanced over at the side where the women were
seated. All the pews were filled save one, and in that there was
only one person. He saw at once that it was Brita and knew, of
course, that no one had cared to sit with her. Ingmar went and sat
down beside her. Brita looked up at him in wonderment. She had not
noticed it before, but now she understood why she had the pew to