“Jon and the man you do not know you must send home to Husaby, with word that Eline is journeying south with you. Let them ride at midday. Say that the women are asleep in the hall; they must take their food in the kitchen. Afterward you must speak with Ulv and Haftor. Hath she threatened before to do this? So that you can bring witness to it, if such question should be asked?” “Every soul that was at Husaby the last years we lived together there,” said Erlend wearily, “can witness that she threatened to take her own life—and mine too sometimes—when I spoke of parting from her.” Björn laughed harshly: “I thought as much. To-night we must clothe her in her riding-coats and set her in the sleigh. You must sit beside her—” Erlend swayed on his feet where he stood: “I cannot!” “God knows how much manhood will be left in _you_ when you have gone your own gait twenty years more,” said Björn. “Think you, then, you can drive the sleigh? For then will I sit beside her. We must travel by night and by lonely paths, till we are come down to Fron. In this cold none can know how long she has been dead. We will drive in to the monk’s Hospice at Roaldstad. There will you and I bear witness that you two were together in the sleigh, and it came to bitter words betwixt you. There is witness enough that you would not live with her since the ban was taken off you, and that you have made suit for a maiden of birth that fits your own. Ulv and Haftor must hold themselves aloof the whole way, so they can swear, if need be, she was alive when last they saw her. You can bring them to do so much, I trow? At the monastery you can have the monks lay her in her coffin—and afterward you must bargain with the priests for grave-peace for her and soul’s peace for yourself.—Aye, a fair deed it is not? But so as you have guided things, no fairer can it be. Stand not there like a breeding woman ready to swoon away. God help you, boy, a man can see _you_ have not proved before what ’tis to feel the knife-edge at your throat.” * * * * * A biting blast came rushing down from the mountains, driving a fine silvery smoke from the snow-wreaths up into the moon-blue air, as the men made ready to drive away. Two horses were harnessed, one in front of the other. Erlend sat in the front of the sleigh. Kristin went up to him: “This time, Erlend, you must try to send me word how this journey goes, and what becomes of you after.” He crushed her hand till she thought the blood must be driven out from under the nails. “Dare you still hold fast to me, Kristin?” “Aye, still,” she said; and after a moment—: “Of this deed we are both guilty—I egged you on—for I willed her death.”