Lars only laughed.  “I thought Jan sane,” he said, “or I shouldn’t have let him come to the meeting.  The pastor will have to pardon the interruption.  It is the madness breaking out again.”

“Why of course!” said the pastor, relieved.  For he had been on the point of believing he had come upon something supernatural.  It was well, he thought, that this was only the fancy of a lunatic.

“You see, Pastor,” Lars went on explaining, “Jan has no great love for me, and it’s plain now he hasn’t the wit to conceal it.  I must confess that in a sense I’m to blame for his daughter having to go away to earn money.  It’s this he holds against me.”

The parson, a little surprised at Lars’s eager tone, gave him a searching glance.  Lars did not meet that gaze, but looked away.  Perceiving his mistake, he tried to look the parson in the face.  Somehow he couldn’t—­so turned away, with an oath.

“Lars Gunnarson!” exclaimed the pastor in astonishment.  “What has come over you?”

Lars immediately pulled himself together.

“Can’t I be rid of this lunatic?” he said, as though Jan were the one he had sworn at.  “Here stand the pastor and all my neighbours regarding me as a murderer only because a madman happens to hold a grudge against me!  I tell you he wants to get back at me on account of his daughter.  How could I know that she would leave home and go wrong simply because I wanted what was due me.  Is there no one here who will take charge of Jan,” he asked, “so that the rest of us may enjoy the service in peace?”

The pastor sat stroking his forehead.  Lars’s remarks troubled him; but he could not reprimand him when he had no positive proof that the man had committed a wrong.  He looked around for the old mistress of Falla; but she had slipped away.  Then he glanced out over the gathering, and from that quarter he got no help.  He was confident that all in the room knew whether or not Lars was guilty, yet, when he turned to them, their faces looked quite blank.  Meantime Katrina had come forward and taken Jan by the arm, and the two of them were then moving toward the door.  Anyhow, the pastor had no desire to question a crazy man.

“I think this will do for to-night,” he said quietly.  “We will bring the meeting to a close.”  He made a short prayer, which was followed by a hymn.  Whereupon the people went their ways.

The pastor was the last to leave.  While Lars was seeing him to the gate he spoke quite voluntarily of that which had just taken place.

“Did you mark, Pastor, it was the Sunday after Midsummer Day I was to be on my guard?” he said.  “That just shows it was the girl Jan had in mind.  It was the Sunday after Midsummer of last year that I was over at Jan’s place to have an understanding with him about the hut.”

All these explanations only distressed the pastor the more.  Of a sudden he put his hand on Lars’s shoulder and tried to read his face.