Nothing could be the same as it had been before, since a man had dared try to wreak such a will on her. She lay awake of nights and burned with shame and could not stop thinking of it. She felt Bentein’s body close against hers as when they fought, his hot, beery breath—she could not help thinking of what might have happened—and she thought, with a shudder through all her body, of what he had said: how Arne would get the blame if it could not be hidden. There rushed through her mind all that would have followed if such a calamity had befallen and then folk had heard of her meeting with Arne—what if her father and mother had believed such a thing of Arne—and Arne himself—She saw him as she had seen him that last evening, and she felt as though she sank crushed before him at the very thought that she _might_ have dragged him down with her into sorrow and disgrace. And then she had such ugly dreams. She had heard tell in church and in holy stories of fleshly lusts and the temptations of the body, but they had meant naught to her. Now it was become real to her that she herself and all mankind had a sinful, carnal body which enmeshed the soul and ate into it with hard bonds. Then she would think out for herself how she might have killed or blinded Bentein. It was the only solace she could find—to sate herself with dreams of revenge upon the dark, hateful man who stood always in the way of her thoughts. But this did not help for long; she lay by Ulvhild’s side of nights and wept bitter tears at the thought of all this that had been brought upon her by brute force. Bentein had not failed altogether—he had wrought scathe to the maidenhood of her spirit. The first work-day after Christmas all the women on Jörundgaard were busy in the kitchen-house; Ragnfrid and Kristin had been there, too, for most of the day. Late in the evening, while some of the women were clearing up after the baking, and others making ready for supper, the dairy-maid came rushing in, shrieking and wringing her hands: “Jesus, Jesus—did ever any hear such a dreadful thing—they are bringing Arne Gyrdson home dead on a sleigh—God help Gyrd and Inga in this misery—” A man who dwelt in a cottage a little way down the road came in with Halvdan. It was these two who had met the bier. The women crowded round them. Outside the circle stood Kristin, white and shaking. Halvdan, Lavrans’ own body-servant, who had known Arne from his boyhood, wept aloud as he told the story: