“We’ll sleep in the little room, of course,” said Hedvig firmly to her mother.
“Ye—es,” said her mother quietly. But as Hedvig began dragging the bedding across, she put on her sternest face, and said:
“Never you mind where your mother’s to sleep or not to sleep. You know your Bible, don’t you, enough to remember about man and wife being one?”
“Ho!”
“But I’ll be there under the window. Yes, that’s best.”
“I know what I’d have done if I’d been you,” said Hedvig firmly. “I wouldn’t have washed that dish.”
“The one with the poison! Heavens, child—why, they might have been ever so ill!”
“They might have died!” Hedvig’s eyes were almost white to look at as she spoke.
At the same moment Egholm came in again, and now nothing was heard but the rattle of the iron bedsteads and flapping of sheets and bedclothes patted down. They shared for better or worse. Hedvig was given one iron bedstead in the little room to herself, but had to be content with a woollen blanket and her father’s old railway cloak for covering. Fru Egholm had to spread her mattress on the floor till they could get the settee screwed together; then she had a real down coverlet over.
Egholm began undressing without a word. His wife turned down the lamp—there were no curtains to the windows. They heard him drop his waistcoat over by the coal-scuttle, and his trousers by the door; then he threw himself on his bed, breathing heavily.