"Maybe you will seek out the new country," she said, with a bleak smile.
"Maybe," he said. "But it may be you who see it first." She shook her head sadly.
"We do foolishly when we talk of my fate," she said, and then there was a silence which was like a winter fog. She broke it by throwing herself into his arms.
"Listen," she said with passion, "listen. They will give me to another man, but I shall be yours all the while. They might give me to two men, one on the heels of another, but it would be nothing. Do you believe it? You must believe it, you must."
"I believe it," said Einar; "but it is dreadful to talk about."
"No, it is not dreadful, because I tell you it is nothing," she said. "You are free to do what you will, and you offer me yourself. I did not like to accept it, because I thought I could give you nothing. But now I know I can. Tell me that you believe me, and then I must go."
He told her as he kissed her that he believed her—but it was not true.
He did not believe her because he could not.
Then they parted. She went back to Orme's house, and he went his way along the shore of the frith.
V
Gudrid did not see Einar again. Kettle, the reeve of Bathbrink, came down to fetch her away, and by now she was behind him on his pad, while Einar was far into the fells. He did not return until late, and then he told Orme that he should sail with the first tide. "Whither will you go?" He said that he must go back to Norway to discharge, and after that did not know what he should do. "I am in heavy trouble over the way this has turned out. At such times a man cares little what may become of him."