Rebecca. What do you suppose could go amiss between them?
Mrs. Helseth. I can't say, miss. Perhaps it was that fellow Mortensgaard set them at loggerheads.
Rebecca. It is quite possible. Do you know anything of this Peter Mortensgaard?
Mrs. Helseth. Not I! How could you think so, miss—a man like that!
Rebecca. Because of that horrid paper he edits, you mean?
Mrs. Helseth. Not only because of that, miss. I suppose you have heard that a certain married woman, whose husband had deserted her, had a child by him?
Rebecca. I have heard it; but of course that was long before I came here.
Mrs. Helseth. Bless me, yes—he was quite a young man then. But she might have had more sense than he had. He wanted to marry her, too, but that could not be done; and so he had to pay heavily for it. But since then—my word!—Mortensgaard has risen in the world. There are lots of people who run after him now.
Rebecca. I believe most of the poor people turn to him first when they are in any trouble.
Mrs. Helseth. Oh, not only the poor people, miss—