Gunhild did not want to go away without letting her parents know that she had been to say good-bye to them.  She went over to the big combination desk and bureau, where her father always kept his writing materials, and drew down the lid.  She could not at first find the ink, so looked for it in drawers and pigeonholes.  While searching, she came upon a small casket which she remembered well.  It was her mother’s—­she had received it from her husband as a wedding present.  When Gunhild was a little girl her mother had often shown it to her.  The casket was enamelled in white, with a garland of hand-painted flowers.  On the inside of the lid was a picture of a shepherd piping to a flock of white lambs.  Gunhild now opened the box to take a last peep at the shepherd.

In this casket Gunhild’s mother had always kept her most cherished keepsakes-the worn-down wedding ring which had belonged to her mother, the old-fashioned watch which had been her father’s, and her own gold earrings.  But when Gunhild opened the box, she found that all these things had been taken out, and in their place lay a letter.  It was a letter that she herself had written.  A year or two before, she had made a trip to Mora by boat across Lake Siljan.  The boat had capsized.  Some of her fellow-passengers were drowned, and her parents had been told that she, too, had perished.  It flashed upon Gunhild that her mother must have been made so happy on receiving a letter from her daughter telling of her safety, that she had taken everything else out of the casket, and placed the letter there as her most priceless treasure.

Gunhild turned as pale as death; her heart was being wrung.  “Now I know that I’m killing my mother,” she said, She no longer thought of writing anything, but hurried away.  She got up into the cart, taking no notice of the many questions as to whether she had seen her parents.  During the remainder of the drive she sat motionless, with her hands in her lap, and staring straight ahead.  “I’m killing my mother,” she was saying to herself.  “I know that I’m killing my mother.  I know that mother will die.  I can never be happy again.  I may go to the Holy Land, but I am killing my own mother.”

***

When the long line of carts and wagons had passed through the village, it turned in on a forest road.  Here the Jerusalem-farers noticed for the first time that they were being shadowed by two persons whom they did not seem to know.  While still in the village, they had been so engrossed in their leave-takings that they had not seen the strange vehicle in which the two unknown people sat; but in the wood their attention was drawn to it.

Sometimes it would drive past all the other carts and lead the procession; then again it would take the side of the road and let the other teams go by.  It was an ordinary wagon, the kind commonly used for carting; therefore, it was impossible to tell to whom it belonged.  Nor did any one recognize the horse.