Kristin answered low:
“I was thinking, maybe in her place I had willed the same.”
“Never would you have willed another should be a leper,” said Aashild, vehemently.
“Mind you, Moster, you said to me once that ’tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair; but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it?”
“You had not dared to do it, because ’twas sin,” said Lady Aashild.
“No, I believe not so,” said Kristin. “Much have I done already that I deemed once I dared not to do because ’twas sin. But I saw not till now what sin brings with it—that we must tread others underfoot.”
“Erlend would fain have made an end of his ill life long before he met you,” said Aashild eagerly. “All was over between those two.”
“I know it,” said Kristin. “But I trow she had never cause to deem Erlend’s purposes so firm that she could not shake them.”
“Kristin,” begged the lady fearfully, “surely you would not give up Erlend now? You cannot be saved now except you save each other.”
“So would a priest scorn counsel,” said Kristin, smiling coldly. “But well I know that never can I give up Erlend now—not if I should tread my own father underfoot.”