“Aye, like enough you did,” said Lavrans, and there was the same shade of scorn in his quiet voice.
“You know not all,” said Ragnfrid, cold with despair. “Mind you that he came out to us at Skog the first winter we were wedded—?”
“Aye,” answered the man.
“When Björgulf was born—oh, I thought he was dearer spared me—He was drunk when he did it—afterward he said he had never cared for me, he would not have me—bade me forget it. My father knew it not; he did not betray you—never think that. But Trond—we were the dearest of friends to each other then—I made my moan to him. He tried to force the man to wed me; but he was but a boy; he was beaten—Afterwards he counselled me to hold my peace, and to take you—”
She sat a while in silence.
“Then he came out to Skog—a year was gone by; I thought not on it so much any more. But he came out thither—he said that he repented, he would have had me now, had I been unwedded—he loved me. He said so. God knows if he said true. When he was gone—I dared not go out on the fjord, dared not for my sin, not with the child. And I had begun—I had begun to love you so!” She cried out, a single cry of the wildest pain. The man turned his head quickly towards her.
“When Björgulf was dying—Oh, no one, no one had to me than my life. When he lay in the death-throes—I thought, if he died, I must die too. But I prayed not God to spare my boy’s life—”
Lavrans sat a long time silent—then he asked in a dead, heavy voice:
“Was it because I was not his father?”
“I knew not if you were,” said Ragnfrid, growing stiff and stark where she sat.