r. "But he's been here many a time since for all that.
And he can come if he likes, I'm not afraid."

"No, that's so," said Oline. "But I know what I know, and if you like,
I'll lay a charge against him."

"Ho!" said Inger. "No, you've no call to do that. Tis not worth it."

But she was not ill pleased to have Oline on her side; it cost her a
cheese, to be sure, but Oline thanked her so fulsomely: "'Tis as I
say, 'tis as I've always said: Inger, she gives with both hands;
nothing grudging, nothing sparing about her! No, maybe you're not
afraid of Os-Anders, but I've forbid him to come here all the same.
'Twas the least I could do for you."

Said Inger then: "What harm could it do if he did come, anyway? He
can't hurt me any more."

Oline pricked up her ears: "Ho, you've learned a way yourself, maybe?"

"I shan't have any more children," said Inger.

And now they were quits, each holding as good a trump as the other:
for Oline stood there knowing all the time that Os-Anders the Lapp had
died the day before....

* * * * *

Why should Inger say that about having no more children? She was not
on bad terms with her husband, 'twas no cat-and-dog life between
them--far from it. They had each their own little ways, but it was
rarely they quarrelled, and never for long at a time; it was soon made
up. And many a time Inger would suddenly be just as she had been in
the old days, working hard in the cowshed or in the field; as if she
had had a relapse into health again. And at such times Isak would look
at his wife with grateful eyes; if he had been the sort of man to
speak his mind at once, he might have said, "H'm. What does this mean,
heh?" or something of the sort, just to show he appreciated it. But
he waited too long, and his praise came too late. So Inger, no doubt,
found it not worth while, and did not care to keep it up.

She might have had children till past fifty; as it was, she was
perhaps hardly forty now. She had learned all sorts of things at the
institution--had she also learned to play tricks with herself? She
had come back so thoroughly trained and educated after her long
association with the other murderesses; maybe the men had taught her
something too--the gaolers, the doctors. She told Isak one day what
one young medical man had said of her little crime: "Why should it be
a criminal offence to kill children--ay, even healthy children? They
were nothing but lumps of fle