"No! Yesterday I thought only of how I could keep it a secret, and I tried to dance and be merry, so that no one would mark any change in me." "Was it your intention to go to the bridal altar to-day without confessing? You were assuming a grave responsibility. Didn't you understand that if you were discovered you would drag Hildur and her kin with you into misery?" "I thought that I was sparing them most by saying nothing." They drove now as fast as possible. The father seemed to be in haste to arrive, and all the time he talked with his son. He had not said so much to him in all his life before. "I wonder how you came to think differently?" said he. "It was because Helga came and wished me luck. Then there was something hard in me that broke. I was touched by something in her. Mother, also, moved me this morning, and I wanted to speak out and tell her that I was not worthy of your love; but then the hardness was still within me and made resistance. But when Helga appeared, it was all over with me. I felt that she really ought to be angry with me who was to blame for her having to leave our home." "Now I think you are agreed with me that we must let the Juryman know this at once," said the father. "Yes," answered Gudmund in a low tone. "Why, certainly!" he added almost immediately after, louder and firmer. "I don't want to drag Hildur into my misfortune. This she would never forgive me." "The Älvåkra folk are jealous of their honor, like the rest," remarked the father. "And you may as well know, Gudmund, that when I left home this morning I was thinking that I must tell the Juryman your position if you did not decide to do so yourself. I never could have stood silently by and let Hildur marry a man who at any moment might be accused of murder." He cracked the whip and drove on, faster and faster. "This will be the hardest thing for you," said he, "but we'll try and have it over with quickly. I believe that, to the Juryman's mind, it will be right for you to give yourself up, and they will be kind to you, no doubt." Gudmund said nothing. His torture increased the nearer they approached Älvåkra. The father continued talking to keep up his courage.