One of them once took it into his head to have everything he owned in pairs. It was not sufficient to have one bell in his room; he must have two. One window was never enough for a room; there must be two or four or six. Two chimneys, two doors, two barns, two haylofts. Never one lad or girl, but always two or four of them. It might seem an innocent whim enough, but he had nearly brought Hånger to ruin with his alterations and rebuilding. Among the cattle, too, he would have as many bulls as cows, and he ordered his wife to bear him a boy and a girl, a boy and a girl, and so on in regular succession. And when she did not obey him, he was not to be trifled with. Again the Pastor smiled. No, clearly it was no light matter at times to be mistress of Hånger. One of the men there had been who was always singing. He came to church singing, and went away singing; he sang when he answered any who spoke to him; sang when he went to bed and when he got up. But for all his singing, he had been a hard and unreasonable man, and it was with him that the misfortune had come. He had once tried to cheat his brother over some inheritance, but his own wife had discovered the fraud, and asked their priest to come to Hånger to talk over the matter with him. But the Master of Hånger thought there was something more behind the visit, and, inflamed with jealousy, had lain in wait for the priest on the way home and killed him. Yes, it was true, as he had just said: no easy matter to be wife to one of the ancient race of Hånger. And yet, none of their womenfolk had ever given themselves out for dead in order to escape. He laughed a short, harsh laugh. It might seem as if he had been the worst of them all. Otherwise, his wife would hardly have had recourse to such desperate means. And what had she to reproach him for after all? Nothing but having loved her too much. He had asked nothing of her but the one thing, that she should be his alone, entirely and without reserve. But suppose that had been in itself too much to ask? If it had been harder to fulfil than that of the mad demands of those wild forefathers of his? Can one human being demand of another such utter and complete surrender of self? Not only in love, but in all else? Pastor Rhånge remembered how he had often thought Sigrun was a being of a different sort, unlike all others; that she had seemed to have a nature of her own, though she could never find expression for it. And that nature of hers, he knew now, was pity. To do good, to sacrifice herself for others, to care for the sick, that had been all her natural craving, but he had set himself against it. He could not endure it. He would have her all to himself, and not share her with any besides. And the thing that had happened, that had seemed so abominable to him before, was there, after all, anything in it but what must necessarily come? It was the steel spring, long compressed, which had unfolded as soon as the pressure was released.