“I see well, Kristin, someone who knew it not to the full has spoken to you of the canonical law. You could not bind yourself by oath to this man without sinning against your father and mother; them had God set over you before you met him. And is it not sorrow and a shame for his kin too, if they learn that he has lured astray the daughter of a man who has borne his shield with honour at all seasons—betrothed, too, to another? I hear by your words, you deem you have not sinned so greatly—yet dare you not confess this thing to your appointed priest. And if so be you think you are as good as wed to this man, wherefore set you not on your head the linen coif of wedlock, but go still with flowing hair amidst the young maids with whom you can have no great fellowship any more—for now must the chief of your thoughts be with other things than they have in mind?” “I know not what they have in their minds,” said Kristin, wearily. “True it is that all my thoughts are with the man I long for. Were it not for my father and mother, I would full gladly bind up my hair this day—little would I care if I were called wanton, if only I might be called his.” “Know you if this man means so to deal toward you, that you may be called his with honour some day,” asked Brother Edwin. Then Kristin told of all that had passed between Erlend Nikulaussön and herself. And while she spoke she seemed not even to call to mind that she had ever doubted the outcome of it all. “See you not, Brother Edwin,” she began again, “we could not help ourselves. God help me, if I were to meet him without here, when I go from you, and should he pray me to go with him, I would go—I wot well, too, I have seen now there be other folk who have sinned as well as we—When I was a girl at home ’twas past my understanding how aught could win such power over the souls of men that they could forget the fear of sin; but so much have I learnt now: if the wrongs men do through lust and anger cannot be atoned for, then must heaven be an empty place—They tell of you, even, that you, too, once struck a man in wrath—”