Long they sat there in a deathly stillness. Then the man asked vehemently of a sudden:
“In Jesus name, Ragnfrid—why tell you me all this—now?”
“Oh, I know not!” She wrung her hands till the joints cracked. “That you may avenge you on me—drive me from your house—”
“Think you that would help me—” His voice shook with scorn. “Then there are our daughters,” he said quietly. “Kristin—and the little one.”
Ragnfrid sat still a while.
“I mind me how you judged of Erlend Nikulaussön,” she said softly. “How judge you of me, then—?”
A long shudder of cold passed over the man’s body—yet a little of the stiffness seemed to leave him.
“You have—we have lived together now for seven and twenty years—almost. ’Tis not the same as with a stranger. I see this too—worse than misery has it been for you.”
Ragnfrid sank together sobbing at the words. She plucked up heart to put her hand on one of his. He moved not at all—sat as still as a dead man. Her weeping grew louder and louder—but her husband still sat motionless, looking at the faint grey light creeping in around the door. At last she lay as if all her tears were spent. Then he stroked her arm lightly downward—and she fell to weeping again.
“Mind you,” she said through her tears, “that man who came to us one time, when we dwelt at Skog? He that knew all the ancient lays? Mind you the lay of a dead man that was come back from the world of torment, and told his son the story of all that he had seen? There was heard a groaning from Hell’s deepest ground, the querns of untrue women grinding mould for their husbands’ meat. Bloody were the stones they dragged at—bloody hung the hearts from out their breasts—”