“’The lightning stroke falls swifter than breath,
    But the tree that is struck bears the mark till its death.’”

And so it is—­there is no more to add; it is as if written by the finger of God.  And so it must be, or what would our love be worth?

“But it is not all who understand it, even the half.  Human beings are so strange—­wondering and asking always—­people ask, for instance, why I am always so lonely....  They cannot see that I am not lonely at all.

“Olof, if you knew all I have felt and suffered in these years!  I hardly know if I dare tell you.  But I must—­I only turn to you now to say it all, so that I may feel easier after.  I have longed for you so—­more than I can ever say; I wonder how I have been able to live at all.  Olof, Olof, do not look at me!  I have only come to whisper a little in your ear....  I have had such dreadful thoughts.  As if someone were always behind me whispering, ’Look, there is a knife—­it is a friend; take it and press it deep in your breast—­it will feel like the softest touch of the evening wind.  Look, the river is in flood....’  And I have hardly dared to pass by the well, for it looked up at me so strangely with its dark eye.  And I know I should have given way if you had not saved me.  When I thought how you would feel if you heard what I had done, I seemed to see you so clearly; you looked at me reproachfully, only looked at me without a word, and I felt ashamed that I had ever thought of what would cause you sorrow.  And you nodded, and forgave me, and all was well again.

“Then I took to hoping that some miracle should bring you back to me.  I hoped something might happen to you, so that I could buy your life with mine.  You might be bitten by a snake—­it does happen sometimes.  Coming up one night with the lumbermen, and then next morning the news would be all over the place, how you had been bitten, and were on the point of death; and I would hurry down with the rest to where you were, and bend down beside you, and press my lips to the place and draw the poison out.  And then I could feel it passing with your blood into my veins, in a great wave of happiness.  And soon I should sink down beside you on the grass; but you would be saved, and you would know I had been true to you until death.

“So I waited year after year.  Then I wanted you to be ill—­very, very ill for a long time, and weak, till your heart could hardly beat at all for want of blood, and you lay in a trance.  Then the doctors would say, if anyone would give their blood he might come to life again.  But no one could be found, for there were only strangers there.  Then I hear about it, and come quickly, and the doctors start at once, for there is no time to be lost.  And they draw off my blood and let it flow into your body, and it acts at once, and you move a little, though you are still in a trance.  ‘A little more,’ say the doctors—­’see, the girl is smiling; it will do her no harm.’  And they only see that I smile, and do not know how weak I am already.  And when you wake, I am cold and pale already, but happy as a bride, and you kiss me on the lips like a lover.  For now I am your bride, and one with you for ever, and I cannot die, for my blood lives in you!