So the winter dragged on toward its end. And Kristin could not cheat herself any more; she had to see that the hardest trial of all lay before them—that Ulvhild had not long to live. And in the midst of her bitter sorrow for her sister she saw with horror that truly her own soul was wildered and eaten away with sin. For, with the dying child and the parents’ unspeakable sorrow before her eyes, she was still brooding on this one thing—if Ulvhild dies, how can I bear to look at my father and not throw myself at his feet and confess all and beseech him to forgive me—and command me—.
They were come far on in the long fast. Folks had begun slaughtering the small stock they had hoped to save alive, for fear they should die of themselves. And the people themselves sickened and pined from living on fish, with naught besides but a little wretched meal and flour. Sira Eirik gave leave to the whole parish to eat milk food if they would. But few of the folk could come by a drop of milk.
Ulvhild lay in bed. She lay alone in the sisters’ bed, and someone watched by her each night. It chanced sometimes that both Kristin and her father would be sitting by her. On such a night Lavrans said to his daughter:
“Mind you what Brother Edwin said that time about Ulvhild’s lot? Even then the thought came to me that maybe he meant this. But I thrust it from me then.”
Sometimes in these nights he would speak of this thing and that from the time when the children were small. Kristin sat there, white and desperate—she knew that behind the words her father was beseeching her.
One day Lavrans had gone with Kolbein to hunt out a bear’s winter lair in the wooded hills to the north. They came home with a she-bear on a sledge, and Lavrans brought with him a living bear-cub in the bosom of his coat. Ulvhild brightened a little when he showed it to her. But Ragnfrid said that was surely no time to rear up such a beast—what would he do with it at a time like this?
“I will rear it up and bind it before my daughters’ bower,” said Lavrans, laughing harshly.
But they could not get for the cub the rich milk it needed, and Lavrans had to kill it a few days after.