Then Kristin thought of asking leave of Sister Potentia to visit some old, crippled women, alms-folk of the convent, who dwelt in a cottage standing in one of the fields. Behind the cottage was an outhouse where the women kept a cow; Kristin offered to tend it for them; and while she was there Erlend would join her and she would let him in. She wondered a little to mark that, glad as Erlend was to be with her, it seemed to rankle in his mind that she could devise such a plan. “’Twas no good day for you when you came to know me,” said he one evening. “Now have you learnt to follow the ways of deceit.” “_You_ ought not to blame me,” answered Kristin sadly. “’Tis not you I blame,” said Erlend quickly with a shamed look. “I had not thought myself,” went on Kristin, “that ’twould come so easy to me to lie. But one _can_ do what one _must_ do.” “Nay, ’tis not so at all times,” said Erlend as before. “Mind you not last winter, when you could not bring yourself to tell your betrothed that you would not have him?” To this Kristin answered naught, but only stroked his face. She never felt so strongly how dear Erlend was to her, as when he said things like this that made her grieve or wonder. She was glad when she could take upon herself the blame for all that was shameful and wrong in their love. Had she found courage to speak to Simon as she should have done, they might have been a long way now on the road to have all put in order. Erlend had done all he could when he had spoken of their wedding to his kinsmen. She said this to herself when the days in the convent grew long and evil—Erlend had wished to make all things right and good again. With little tender smiles she thought of him as he drew a picture of their wedding for her,—she should ride to church in silks and velvet, she should be led to the bridal bed with the high golden crown on her flowing hair—“your lovely, lovely hair,” he said, drawing her plaits through his hand. “Yet can it not be the same to you as though I had never been yours,” said Kristin musingly, once when he talked thus. Then he clasped her to him wildly: “Can I call to mind the first time I drank in Yule-tide think you, or the first time I saw the hills at home turn green when winter was gone? Aye, well do I mind the first time you were mine, and each time since—but to have you for my own is like keeping Yule and hunting birds on green hillsides for ever—”