'Who can that woman be?' thought the King. 'It seems to me that I have seen her before. She is undoubtedly a high-born woman who is in trouble.'
However great a hurry the King was in to go to Storräde, he could not take his eyes away from the woman. It seemed to him that he had seen these tender eyes and this gentle face before, but where, he could not call to mind. The woman still stood in the church door, as if she could not tear herself away. Then the King went up to her and asked:
'Why art thou so sorrowful?'
'I am turned out of my home,' answered the woman, pointing to the little dark church.
The King thought she meant that she had taken refuge in the church because she had no other place to go to. He again asked:
'Who hath turned thee out?'
She looked at him with an unutterably sorrowful glance.
'Dost thou not know?' she asked.
But then the King turned away from her. He had no time to stand guessing riddles, he thought. It appeared as if the woman meant that it was he who had turned her out. He did not understand what she could mean.