“You think, mayhap, ’tis not seemly?” he asked, and, as she did not answer, he said again: “It may well be it is not so. But I thought now maybe you might deem you would be none the worse if you took my hand in the dance to-night. But indeed ’tis eight years since I stood up to dance.” “How may that be, sir?” asked Kristin. “Mayhap you are wedded?” But then it came into her head that had he been a wedded man, to have made tryst with her thus would have been no fair deed of him. On that she tried to mend her speech, saying: “Maybe, you have lost your betrothed maid or your wife?” Erlend turned quickly and looked on her with strange eyes: “Hath not Lady Aashild—? Why grew you so red when you heard who I was that evening,” he asked a little after. Kristin flushed red once more, but did not answer; then Erlend asked again: “I would fain know what my mother’s sister said to you of me.” “Naught else,” said Kristin quickly, “but in your praise. She said you were so comely and so great of kin that—she said that beside such as you and her kin we were of no such great account—my folk and I—” “Doth she still talk thus, living the life she lives,” said Erlend, and laughed bitterly. “Aye, aye—if it comfort her—Said she naught else of me?” “What should she have said?” asked Kristin—she knew not why she was grown so strangely heavy-hearted. “Oh, she must have said”—he spoke in a low voice, looking down, “she might have said that I had been under the Church’s ban, and had to pay dear for peace and atonement—” Kristin was silent a long time. Then she said softly: “There is many a man who is not master of his own fortunes—so have I heard said. ’Tis little I have seen of the world—but I will never believe of you, Erlend, that ’twas for any—dishonourable—deed.” “May God reward you for those words, Kristin,” said Erlend, and bent his head and kissed her wrist so vehemently that the horse gave a bound beneath them. When Erlend had it in hand again, he said earnestly: “Dance with me to-night then, Kristin. Afterwards I will tell how things are with me—will tell you all—but to-night we will be happy together?” Kristin answered: “Aye,” and they rode a while in silence. But ere long Erlend began to ask of Lady Aashild, and Kristin told all she knew of her; she praised her much. “Then all doors are not barred against Björn and Aashild?” asked Erlend. Kristin said they were thought much of, and that her father and many with him deemed that most of the tales about these two were untrue. “How liked you my kinsman, Munan Baardsön?” asked Erlend laughing slily. “I looked not much upon him,” said Kristin, “and methought, too, he was not much to look on.” “Knew you not,” asked Erlend, “that he is her son?” “Son to Lady Aashild!” said Kristin, in great wonder. “Aye, her children could not take their mother’s fair looks, though they took all else,” said Erlend. “I have never known her first husband’s name,” said Kristin.