his is why
you have no standing in the parish?' 'They all think it ought not
to have gone that way for Brita. Folks say that if I had been a
sensible man, like yourself, I would have talked to her and found
out what was troubling her.' 'It's not so easy for a man to
understand a bad woman!' says father. 'No, father, Brita was not
bad, but she was a proud one!' 'It comes to the same thing,' says
father.

"Now that father seems to side with me, I say: 'There are many who
think I should have managed it in such a way that no one would have
known but that the child was born dead.' 'Why shouldn't she take
her punishment?' says father. 'They say if this had happened in
your time, you would have made the servant who found her keep her
tongue in her head so that nothing could have leaked out.' 'And in
that case would you have married her?' 'Why then there would have
been no need of my marrying her. I would have sent her back to her
parents in a week or so and the banns annulled, on the grounds that
she was not happy with us.' 'That's all very well, but no one can
expect a young chap like you to have an old man's head on him.'
'The whole parish thinks that I behaved badly toward Brita.' 'She
has done worse in bringing disgrace upon honest folk.' 'But I made
her take me.' 'She ought to be mighty glad of it,' says father.
'But, father, don't you think it is my fault her being in prison?'
'She put herself there, I'm thinking.' Then I get up and say very
slowly: 'So you don't think, father, that I have to do anything for
her when she comes out in the fall?' 'What should you do? Marry
her?' 'That's just what I ought to do.' Father looks at me a
moment, then asks: 'Do you love her?' 'No! She has killed my love.'
Father closes his eyes and begins to meditate. 'You see, father, I
can't get away from this: that I have brought misfortune upon some
one.'

"The old man sits quite still and does not answer.

"'The last time I saw her was in the courtroom. Then she was so
gentle, and longed so for her child. Not one harsh word did she say
against me. She took all the blame to herself. Many in that
courtroom were moved to tears, and the judge himself had to swallow
hard. He didn't give her more than three years, either.'

"But father does not say a word.

"'It will be hard for her when fall comes, and she's sent home.
They won't be glad to have her again at Bergskog. Her folks all
feel that she has brought shame upon them, and they're p