"It was after that I began to care for you. I had never imagined that any mortal could say such a thing. It seemed almost unbelievable your saying it to me, after all I had done to you. As I saw you that day, I thought you better looking than all the others, and you were wiser than any of them, and the only one with whom it would be good to share one's life. I fell so deeply in love with you that it seemed as if you belonged to me, and I to you. At first I took it for granted that you would come and fetch me, but later I hardly dared think it."
Ingmar raised his head. "Then why didn't you write?" he asked.
"But I did write."
"Asking me to forgive you, as if that were anything to write about!"
"What should I have written?"
"About the other thing."
"How would I have dared—I?"
"I came mighty near not coming at all."
"But Ingmar! do you suppose I could have written love letters to you after all I had done! My last day in prison I wrote to you because the chaplain said I must. When I gave him the letter, he promised not to send it until I was well on my way."
Ingmar took her hand and flattened it against the earth, then slapped it.