barn
with an empty hay wagon to go after another load; the rumbling of the
wheels prevented him from hearing her call; but she overtook him.

"Was it you who took one of the fore-wheels from my carriage?" asked
she.

"Fore-wheel of the carriage," repeated old Andreas. "Is it off? Stand
still, you fool there?" he cried, giving the reins such a jerk that one
of the horses started to move backward instead of forward, for it was a
young horse.

But in the mean time Roennaug had gained light on the question, and left
Andreas. In slow English she told Magnhild what she believed she had
discovered; she did not want the boy who was standing by to understand.
Andreas drove on.

Magnhild laughed: "Yes, Skarlie has come. It is undoubtedly he!" and
turning to the boy she said that she would accompany him at once.

Roennaug tried to persuade Magnhild to remain where she was and let _her_
go. No, Magnhild preferred to go herself. She was already on her way
when Roennaug called after her that she would soon follow herself to see
how things were going. Magnhild looked back with a smile, and said,--

"You may if you like!"

So after a time Roennaug set forth for Synstevold. She knew very well
that Skarlie could offer nothing that would tempt Magnhild, but he might
be annoying, perhaps rough. The fore-wheel was a warning.

There was perhaps no one to whom Skarlie was so repulsive as to Roennaug.
She knew him well. No one besides Roennaug could surmise how he had
striven, dastard as he was, to taint the purity of Magnhild's
imagination, to deaden her high sense of honor. Magnhild's frequent
blushes had their history.

What was it that so bound him to her? At the outset, of course, the hope
that failed. But since then? The evening before, when the conversation
had turned on the Catholic cloisters, the priest had remarked that
Skarlie--who was a man that had traveled and thought considerably--had
said that in the cloisters the monks prayed night and day to make amends
for the neglected prayers of the rest of the people. That was the reason
why people were willing to give their money so freely to the cloisters:
it was like making a cash payment on the debt of sin.

Roennaug had sat and pondered. Had not Skarlie hereby explained his own
relations with Magnhild? It was his way of making payments on his debt
of sin.

And so, of course, he grudged giving her up.

Had he but been harsh and impatient, Magnhild would immediately have