It was impossible to consider the documents and depositions in the present case without feeling the deepest sympathy for this young girl in her forsaken situation.  And yet there was no need to appeal to mercy on her behalf, only to justice and human understanding.  She and her master were in a way betrothed, but a certain dissimilarity of temperament and interests prevented them from marrying.  The girl could not entrust her future to such a man.  It was not a pleasant subject, but it might be well to return for a moment to the question of the wrapping that had been spoken of before; it should here be noted that the girl had taken, not one of her own undergarments, but one of her master’s shirts.  The question at once arose:  had the man himself offered the material for the purpose?  Here, one was at first inclined to see a possibility, at any rate, that the man, Axel, had had some part in the affair.

“H’m,” from some one in court.  Loud and hard—­so much so, indeed, that the speaker paused, and all looked round to see who might be responsible for the interruption.  The presiding justice frowned.

But, went on the advocate for the defence, collecting himself again, in this respect, also, we can set our minds at rest, thanks to the accused herself.  It might seem well to her advantage to divide the blame here, but she had not attempted to do so.  She had entirely and without reserve absolved Axel Stroem from any complicity whatever in the fact of her having taken his shirt instead of something of her own on her way to the water—­that is, on her way to the woods to gather juniper.  There was not the slightest reason for doubting the asseveration of the accused on this point; her depositions had throughout been found in accordance with the facts, and the same was evidently the case in this.  Had the shirt been given her by the man, this would have been to presuppose a killing of the child already planned—­the accused, truthful as she was, had not attempted to charge even this man with a crime that had never been committed.  Her demeanour throughout had been commendably frank and open; she had made no endeavour to throw the blame on others.  There were frequent instances before the court of this delicacy of feeling on the part of the accused, as, for instance, the fact that she had wrapped up the body of the child as well as she could, and put it away decently, as the Lensmand had found it.

Here the presiding justice interposed, merely as a matter of form, observing that it was grave No. 2 which the Lensmand had found—­the grave in which Axel had buried the body after its removal from the first.

“True, that is true.  I stand corrected,” said the advocate, with all proper respect for the president of the court.  Perfectly true.  But—­Axel had himself stated that he had only carried the body from one grave and laid it in the other.  And there could be no doubt but that a woman was better able to wrap up a child than was a man—­and who best of all?  Surely a mother’s tender hand?