"I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I only thought that we two
ought to be together as we loved one another. No, I didn't even
think that then. I only crept in to him, without thinking about
it at all. Would you believe that I was so innocent in those days?
And nothing bad happened either."

"And nothing happened even?" said Lasse. "But it's terribly sad to
think how things have turned out. It was the death of your father."

The big woman began to cry helplessly, and Lasse was almost in
tears himself.

"Perhaps I ought never to have told you," he said in despair.
"But I thought you must have heard about it. I suppose he thought
that he, as schoolmaster, bore the responsibility for so many,
and that you'd thrown yourself at any one in that way, and a poor
farm-servant into the bargain, cut him to the quick. It's true
enough that he mixed with us poor folks as if we'd been his equals,
but the honor was there all the same; and he took it hardly when
the fine folk wouldn't look at him any more. And after all it was
nothing at all--nothing happened? But why didn't you tell them so?"

Johanna had stopped crying, and now sat with tear-stained, quivering
face, and eyes turned away.

"I did tell them, but they wouldn't listen. I was found there of
course. I screamed for help when I found out he didn't even know me,
but was only flattered at my coming, and wanted to take hold of me.
And then the others came running in and found me there. They laughed
and said that I'd screamed because I'd lost my innocence; and I