She became observant.  “That is love,” she said to herself.  “And now he believes that I am also in love.  What madness, that Vaermland boy!”

She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her.  She had not the heart to spoil his happy mood.  She felt compassion for his foolishness and let him live in it.  “It does not matter, as I am to die so soon,” she said to herself.

But she sent him away soon after, and when he asked if he might not come again, she forbade him absolutely.  “But,” she said, “do you remember our graveyard up on the hill, Petter Nord.  You can come there in a few weeks and thank death for that day.”

As Petter Nord came out of the garden, he met Halfvorson.  He was walking forward and back in despair, and his only consolation was the thought that Edith was laying the burden of remorse on the wrong-doer.  To see him overpowered by pangs of conscience, for that alone had he sought him out.  But when he met the young workman, he saw that Edith had not told him everything.  He was serious, but at the same time he certainly was madly happy.

“Has Edith told you why she is dying?” said Halfvorson.

“No,” answered Petter Nord.

Halfvorson laid his hand on his shoulder as if to keep him from escaping.

“She is dying because of you, because of your damned pranks.  She was slightly ill before, but it was nothing.  No one thought that she would die; but then you came with those three wretched tramps, and they frightened her while you were in my shop.  They chased her, and she ran away from them, ran till she got a hemorrhage.  But that is what you wanted; you wished to be revenged on me by killing her, wished to leave me lonely and unhappy without a soul near me who cares for me.  All my joy you wished to take from me, all my joy.”

He would have gone on forever, overwhelmed Petter Nord with reproaches, killed him with curses; but the latter tore himself away and ran, as if an earthquake had shaken the town and all the houses were tumbling down.

IV

Behind the town the mountain walls rise perpendicularly, but after one has climbed up them by steep stone steps and slippery pine paths, one finds that the mountain spreads out into a wide, undulating plateau.  And there lies an enchanted wood.

Over the whole stretch of the mountain stands a pine wood without pine-needles; a wood which dies in the spring and grows green in the autumn; a lifeless wood, which blossoms with the joy of life when other trees are laying aside their green garments; a wood that grows without any one knowing how, that stands green in winter frosts and brown in summer dews.