the space, my wife cannot abide to be without
me. [To MARGIT, caressing her.] Content you; I shall soon be
with you again.

[He goes out to the back.

MARGIT.

[To herself.] Oh, torture, to have to endure it all.

[A short silence.

GUDMUND.

How goes it, I pray, with your sister dear?

MARGIT.

Right well, I thank you.

GUDMUND.

They said she was here
With you.

MARGIT.

She has been here ever since we--
[Breaks off.

She came, now three years since, to Solhoug with me.
[After a pause.

Ere long she'll be here, her friend to greet.

GUDMUND.

Well I mind me of Signe's nature sweet.
No guile she dreamed of, no evil knew.
When I call to remembrance her eyes so blue
I must think of the angels in heaven.
But of years there have passed no fewer than seven;
In that time much may have altered. Oh, say
If she, too, has changed so while I've been away?

MARGIT.

She too? Is it, pray, in the halls of kings
That you learn such courtly ways, Sir Knight?
To remind me thus of the change time brings--

GUDMUND.

Nay, Margit, my meaning you read aright!
You were kind to me, both, in those far-away years--
Your eyes, when we parted were wet with tears.
We swore like brother and sister still
To hold together in good hap or ill.
'Mid the other maids like a sun you shone,
Far, far and wide was your beauty known.
You are no less fair than you were, I wot;
But Solhoug's mistress, I see, has forgot
The penniless kinsman. So hard is your mind
That ever of old was gentle and kind.

MARGIT. [Choking back her tears.]

Aye, of old--!

GUDMUND. [Looks compassionately at her, is silent for a little,
then says in a subdued voice.

Shall we do as your husband said?
Pass the time with talk of the dear old days?

MARGIT. [Vehemently.]

No, no, not of them!
Their memory's dead.
My mind unwillingly backward strays.
Tell rather of what your life has been,
Of what in the wide world you've done and seen.
Adventures you've lacked not, well I ween--
In all the warmth and the space out yonder,
That heart and mind should be light, what wonder?

GUDMUND.

In the King's high hall I found not the joy
That I knew by my own poor hearth as a boy.

MARGIT. [Without looking at him.]

While I, as at Solhoug each day flits past,
Thank Heaven that here has my lot been cast.

GUDMUND.

'