“Aye, methought it was well with us in our life together,” he said. “Methought ’twas but that you sorrowed for our children—aye, and that you were born heavy of mood. Never did it come to my mind, it might be that I was no good husband to you—” Ragnfrid trembled fitfully: “You were ever a good husband, Lavrans.” “Hm,” Lavrans sat with his chin resting on his knees. “Yet had it mayhap been better with you, if you had been wedded even as our daughter was to-day—” Ragnfrid started up with a low, piercing cry: “You know! How did you know it—how long have you known—?” “I know not what ’tis you speak of,” said Lavrans after a while in a strange deadened voice. “This do I speak of—that I was no maid, when I came to be your wife,” said Ragnfrid, and her voice rang clear in her despair. In a little while Lavrans answered, as before: “That have I never known, till now.” Ragnfrid laid her down among the hay, shaken with weeping. When the fit was over she lifted her head a little. A faint grey light was beginning to creep in through the window-hole in the wall. She could dimly see her husband sitting with his arms thrown round his knees, motionless as stone. “Lavrans—speak to me—” she wailed. “What would you I should say?” asked he without stirring. “Oh—I know not—curse me—strike me—” “’Twould be something late now,” answered the man; there seemed to be the shade of a scornful smile in his voice. Ragnfrid wept again: “Aye—I heeded not then that I was betraying you. So betrayed and so dishonoured, methought, had I been myself. There was none had spared me. They came and brought you—you know yourself, I saw you but three times before we were wed—Methought you were but a boy, white and red—so young and childish—” “I was so,” said Lavrans, and a faint ring of life came to his voice. “And therefore a man might deem that you, who were a woman—you might have been more afraid to—to deceive one who was so young that he knew naught—” “So did _I_ think after,” said Ragnfrid, weeping. “When I had come to know you. Soon came the time, when I would have given my soul twenty times over, to be guiltless of sin against you.” Lavrans sat silent and motionless; then said his wife: “You ask not anything?” “What use to ask? It was he that—we met his burial-train at Feginsbrekka, as we bore Ulvhild in to Nidaros—” “Aye,” said Ragnfrid. “We had to leave the way—go aside into a meadow. I saw them bear him on his bier—with priests and monks and armed yeomen. I heard he had made a good end—had made his peace with God. I prayed as we stood there with Ulvhild’s litter between us—I prayed that my sin and my sorrow might be laid at his feet on the Last Day—” “Aye, like enough you did,” said Lavrans, and there was the same shade of scorn in his quiet voice. “You know not all,” said Ragnfrid, cold with despair. “Mind you that he came out to us at Skog the first winter we were wedded—?” “Aye,” answered the man.