“Aye, but he can. But so much you can understand, I trow: I will not do such offence to the Dyfrin folk as to betroth you to another the moment you have turned your back on Simon—and least of all to a man who might be more high in rank or richer—You must say who this man is,” he said after a little.
Kristin pressed her hands together and breathed deeply. Then she said very slowly:
“I cannot, father. Thus it stands, that should I not get this man, then you can take me back to the convent and never take me from it again—I shall not live long there, I trow. But it would not be seemly that I should name his name, ere yet I know he bears as good a will toward me as I have to him. You—you must not force me to say who he is, before—before ’tis seen whether—whether he is minded to make suit for me through his kin.”
Lavrans was a long time silent. He could not but be pleased that his daughter took the matter thus; he said at length:
“So be it then. ’Tis but reason that you would fain keep back his name, if you know not more of his purposes.”
“Now must you to bed, Kristin,” he said a little after. He came and kissed her:
“You have wrought sorrow and pain to many by this waywardness of yours, my daughter—but this you know, that your good lies next my heart—God help me, ’twould be so, I fear me, whatever you might do—He and His gentle Mother will surely help us, so that this may be turned to the best—Go now, and see that you sleep well.”
After he had lain down, Lavrans thought he heard a little sound of weeping from the bed by the other wall, where his daughter lay. But he made as though he slept. He had not the heart to say to her that he feared the old talk about her and Arne and Bentein would be brought up again now, but it weighed heavily upon him that ’twas but little he could do to save the child’s good name from being besmirched behind his back. And the worst was that he must deem much of the mischief had been wrought by her own thoughtlessness.