it should be as it had been determined for them. Until that summer when, locked in an embrace, they had fallen out of childhood and innocence, frightened, but at the same time giddy with rapture at the new sweetness they had found in each other—whether it were right or wrong that they abandoned themselves to it. Even when he awoke to a fear and defiance of all who would meddle with their destiny, he had been full sure that at last they two would win their cause. These memories would come suddenly upon Olav, and the pain of them was like the stab of a knife. That dream was now to take its course-but not the course he had imagined. And remembering himself as he was then was like remembering some other man he had known—a boy of such infinite simplicity that he both pitied and despised him, and envied him excruciatingly—a child he had been, with no suspicion of deceit, either in himself or in others. But he knew that for this anguish of the soul there was but one remedy—he would have to hide his wound so that no one, she least of all, might see that he bore a secret hurt.
These thoughts might assail him while he sat conversing with the other Olav, and he would break off in the midst of his talk. The old man scarcely noticed it, but talked on and on, and the young man stared before him with a face hard and close—till old Olav asked him some question, and young Olav became aware that he had not heard a word of what the other had been saying.
But he made ready to shoulder the burden he had to bear-without wincing, should it be God’s will to chasten him sorely in the coming years. For in a way the memory of that ski journey he had made with another and of the night at the sæter was ever present to him—except that he did not seem to see
himself
as the murderer. Rather was it as though he had witnessed a settling of scores between two strangers. But it
was
he, he knew that in a strange, indifferent way, and the sin was
his
sin. The slaying in itself could hardly be any mortal sin: he had not enticed the other into an ambush, the lad himself had planned this journey, and he had fallen sword in hand—and even a thrall had had the right to avenge his wife’s honour in old days, he had heard; ’twas a man’s right and duty by the law of God and men.
It was what came after—
And he had a feeling that he was offering God a makeshift in squaring his shoulders and making ready to bear the burden of Ingunn’s misfortune. Never would he let anyone see it if it became too heavy. And he would live piously and in the fear of God from now on—so far as that was in the power of a man who had an unshriven sin on his conscience. He would act justly by his neighbour, be charitable to the poor, protect the forlorn and defenceless, honour the house of God and his parish priest and render such payments as were due, say his daily prayers devoutly and with reflection and repeat the Miserere often, pondering the words well. He knew that he had received far too little instruction in the Christian faith during his youth; Brother Vegard had done his best, but he came to Frettastein only once or twice a year and stayed there but a week, and there was none else who so much as made inquiry whether the children said their prayers every day. And the good instruction he had received while with Bishop Torfinn had fared as in the parable—so many tares had been sown among the wheat during the years he spent abroadthat the wheat, just as it was beginning to sprout, was choked by the weeds. For the first time something like remorse for the slaying of Einar Kolbeinsson dawned upon Olav Audunsson: he had regretted it because it was an ill reward to Bishop Torfinn for his kindness and because, as his affairs were then situated, it was the most unlucky chance that could befall him—ay, and then he knew that he
ought
to repent it, because it w
as
sin, even if he could not see why it was so sinful. Now he began to divine that a deeper meaning and a