Erlend clasped her to him and groaned:
“I cannot bring you to Husaby, Kristin.”
“Why can you not?” she asked softly.
“Eline came thither in the autumn,” said he after a moment. “I cannot move her to leave the place,” he went on hotly, “not unless I bear her to the sledge by force and drive away with her. And that methought I could not do—she has brought both our children home with her.”
Kristin felt herself sinking, sinking. In a voice breaking with fear, she said:
“I deemed you were parted from her.”
“So deemed I, too,” answered Erlend shortly. “But she must have heard in Österdal, where she was, that I had thoughts of marriage. You saw the man with me at the Yuletide feast—’twas my foster-father, Baard Petersön of Hestnæs. I went to him when I came from Sweden; I went to my kinsman Heming Alvsön in Saltviken, too; I talked with both about my wish to wed, and begged their help. Eline must have come to hear of it—
“I bade her ask what she would for herself and the children—but Sigurd, her husband—they look not that he should live the winter out—and then none could deny us if we would live together—
“I lay in the stable with Haftor and Ulf, and Eline lay in the hall in my bed. I trow my men had a rare jest to laugh at behind my back—”
Kristin could not say a word. A little after, Erlend spoke again:
“See you, the day we pledge each other at our espousals, she must understand that all is over between her and me—she has no power over me any more—
“But ’tis hard for the children. I had not seen them for a year—they are fair children—and little can I do to give them a happy lot. ’Twould not have helped them greatly had I been able to wed their mother.”
Tears began to roll down over Kristin’s cheeks. Then Erlend said:
“Heard you what I said but now, that I had talked with my kinsfolk? Aye, they were glad enough that I was minded to wed. Then I said ’twas you I would have and none other.”
“And they liked not that?” asked Kristin at length, forlornly.
“See you not?” said Erlend gloomily, “they could say but one thing—they cannot and they will not ride with me to your father, until this bargain ’twixt you and Simon Andressön is undone again. It has made it none the easier for us, Kristin, that you have spent your Yuletide with the Dyfrin folk.”
Kristin gave way altogether and wept noiselessly. She had felt ever that there was something of wrong and dishonour in her love, and now she knew the fault was hers.
She shook with the cold when she got up soon after, and Erlend wrapped her in both the cloaks. It was quite dark now without, and Erlend went with her as far as St. Clement’s Church; then Brynhild brought her the rest of the way to Nonneseter.
VII
A week later Brynhild Fluga came with the word that the cloak was ready, and Kristin went with her and met Erlend in the loft-room as before.
When they parted, he gave her a cloak: “So that you may have something to show in the convent,” said he. It was of blue velvet with red silk inwoven, and Erlend bade her mark that ’twas of the same hues as the dress she had worn that day in the woods. Kristin wondered it should make her so glad that he said this—she thought he had never given her greater happiness than when he had said these words.
But now they could no longer make use of this way of meeting, and it was not easy to find a new one. But Erlend came often to vespers at the convent church, and sometimes Kristin would make herself an errand after the service up to the commoners’ houses; and then they would snatch a few words together by stealth up by the fences in the murk of the winter evening.
Then Kristin thought of asking leave of Sister Potentia to visit some old, crippled women, alms-folk of the convent, who dwelt in a cottage standing in one of the fields. Behind the cottage was an outhouse where the women kept a cow; Kristin offered to tend it for them; and while she was there Erlend would join her and she would let him in.
She wondered a little to mark that, glad as Erlend was to be with her, it seemed to rankle in his mind that she could devise such a plan.
“ ’Twas no good day for you when you came to know me,” said he one evening. “Now have you learnt to follow the ways of deceit.”
“You ought not to blame me,” answered Kristin sadly.
“ ’Tis not you I blame,” said Erlend quickly, with a shamed look.
“I had not thought myself,” went on Kristin, “that ’twould come so easy to me to lie. But one can do what one must do.”
“Nay, ’tis not so at all times,” said Erlend as before. “Mind you not last winter, when you could not bring yourself to tell your betrothed that you would not have him?”
To this Kristin answered naught, but only stroked his face.
She never felt so strongly how dear Erlend was to her, as when he said things like this that made her grieve or wonder. She was glad when she could take upon herself the blame for all that was shameful and wrong in their love. Had she found courage to speak to Simon as she should have done, they might have been a long way now on the road to have all put in order. Erlend had done all he could when he had spoken of their wedding to his kinsmen. She said this to herself when the days in the convent grew
