“That do I,” said Kristin. “I know the law is such that none may force a maid to marriage against her will; else can she take her plea before the Thing—”
“I trow ’tis before the bishop,” said Simon, with something of a grim smile. “True it is, I have had no cause to search out how the law stands in such things. And I wot well you believe not either that ’twill come to that pass. You know well enough that I will not hold you to your word, if your heart is too much set against it. But can you not understand—’tis two years now since our marriage was agreed, and you have said no word against it till now, when all is ready for the betrothal and the wedding. Have you thought what it will mean, if you come forth now an seek to break the bond, Kristin?”
“But you want me not either,” said Kristin.
“Aye, but I do,” answered Simon curtly. “If you think otherwise, you must even think better of it—”
“Erlend Nikulaussön and I have vowed to each other by our Christian faith,” said she, trembling, “that if we cannot come together in wedlock, then neither of us will have wife or husband all our days—”
Simon was silent a good while. Then he said with effort:
“Then I know not, Kristin, what you meant when you said Erlend had neither drawn you on nor promised you aught—he has lured you to set yourself against the counsel of all your kin.—Have you thought what kind of husband you will get, if you wed a man who took another’s wife to be his paramour—and now would take for wife another man’s betrothed maiden—?”
Kristin gulped down her tears; she whispered thickly:
“This you say but to hurt me.”
“Think you I would wish to hurt you?” asked Simon in a low voice.