“Inga,” said Lavrans, coming forward, “have you lost your wits—are you raving—”
“Oh, aye, you are all so fine, down at Jörundgaard—you were far too rich a man, you Lavrans Björgulfsön, for my son to dare think of courting your daughter with honour—and Kristin, too, she thought herself too good. But she was not too good to run after him on the highway at night and play with him in the thickets the night he left—ask her yourself and we will see if she dare deny it here, with Arne lying dead—and all through her lightness—”
Lavrans did not ask, he turned to Gyrd:
“Curb your wife, man—you see she has clean lost her wits—”
But Kristin lifted her white face and looked desperately about her:
“I went and met Arne the last evening because he begged me to. But naught of wrong passed between us.” And then, as she seemed to come to herself and to understand all, she cried out: “I know not what you mean, Inga—would you slander Arne, and he lying here—never did he tempt me nor lure me astray—”
But Inga laughed aloud:
“Nay, not Arne! but Bentein Priest—he did not let you play with him so—ask Gunhild, Lavrans, that washed the dirt off your daughter’s back; and ask each man who was in the Bishop’s henchmen’s hall on New Year’s Eve, when Bentein flouted Arne for that he had let her go, and leave him standing like a fool. She let Bentein walk homeward with her under her cloak and would have played the same game with him—”
Lavrans took her by the shoulder and laid his hand over her mouth:
“Take her away, Gyrd. Shameful it is that you should speak such words by this good youth’s body—but if all your children lay here dead, I would not stand and hear you lie about mine—you, Gyrd, must answer for what this madwoman says—”