She stood and hung her head, but left her hands upon his shoulders. He caught her wrists and held them tight: “I see how ’tis with you, my sweeting; you little know how sore I am at heart to lose you. Kristin, you know we have grown up together like two apples on one branch; I loved you long before I began to understand that one day another would come and break you from me. As sure as God suffered death for us all—I know not how I can ever be happy in this world after to-day—” Kristin wept bitterly and lifted her face, so that he might kiss her. “Do not talk so, my Arne,” she begged, and patted him on the shoulder. “Kristin,” said Arne in a low voice and took her into his arms again, “think you not that if you begged your father—Lavrans is so good a man, he would not force you against your will—if you begged them but to let you wait a few years—no one knows how fortune may turn for me—we are both of us so young.” “Oh, I fear I must do as they wish at home,” she wept. And now weeping came upon Arne too. “You know not, Kristin, how dear you are to me.” He hid his face upon her shoulder. “If you did, and if you cared for me, for sure you would go to Lavrans and beg hard—” “I cannot do it,” she sobbed. “I could never come to love any man so much as to go against my father and mother for his sake.” She groped with her hands for his face under the hood and the heavy steel cap. “Do not cry so, Arne, my dearest friend—” “You must take this at least,” said he after a time, giving her a little brooch; “and think of me sometimes, for I shall never forget you nor my grief—” It was all dark when Kristin and Arne had said their last farewell. She stood and looked after him when at length he rode away. A streak of yellow light shone through a rift in the clouds, and was reflected in the footprints, where they had walked and stood in the slush on the road—it all looked so cold and sorrowful, she thought. She drew up her linen neckerchief and dried her tear-stained face, then turned and went homeward. She was wet and cold and walked quickly. After a time she heard someone coming along the road behind her. She was a little frightened; even on such a night as this there might be strange folk journeying on the highway, and she had a lonely stretch before her. A great black scree rose right up on one side, and on the other the ground fell steeply and there was fir-forest all the way down to the leaden-hued river in the bottom of the dale. So she was glad when the man behind her called to her by name; and she stood still and waited. The newcomer was a tall, thin man in a dark surcoat with lighter sleeves—as he came nearer she saw he was dressed as a priest and carried an empty wallet on his back. And now she knew him to be Bentein Priestson, as they called him—Sira Eirik’s daughter’s son. She saw at once that he was far gone in drink.