“May God forsake me if I take any other man to my arms so long as I live on earth.”
“We must go now,” said Erlend a little after, “—before folk waken—”
They passed along without the wall among the bushes.
“Have you bethought you,” asked Erlend, “what further must be done in this?”
“’Tis for you to say what we must do, Erlend,” answered Kristin.
“Your father,” he asked in a little, “they say at Gerdarud he is a mild and a righteous man. Think you he will be so exceeding loth to go back from what he hath agreed with Andres Darre?”
“Father has said so often, he would never force us, his daughters,” said Kristin. “The chief thing is that our lands and Simon’s lie so fitly together. But I trow father would not that I should miss all my gladness in this world for the sake of that.” A fear stirred within her that so simple as this perhaps it might not prove to be—but she fought it down.
“Then maybe ’twill be less hard than I deemed in the night,” said Erlend. “God help me, Kristin—methinks I cannot lose you now—unless I win you now, never can I be glad again.”
They parted among the trees, and in the dawning light Kristin found her way to the guest-chamber where the women from Nonneseter were to lie. All the beds were full, but she threw a cloak upon some straw on the floor and laid her down in all her clothes.