le room, and Axel lying out in the hayshed, just
as she herself had done. She goes to the door she knows so well,
breathless as a thief, and calls softly: "Axel!"

"What's that?" asks Axel all at once.

"Nay, 'tis only me," says Barbro, and steps in. "You couldn't house me
for the night?" she says.

Axel looks at her and is slow to think, and sits there in his
underclothes, looking at her. "So 'tis you," says he. "And where'll
you be going?"

"Why, depends first of all if you've need of help to the summer work,"
says she.

Axel thinks over that, and says: "Aren't you going to stay where you
were, then?"

"Nay; I've finished at the Lensmand's."

"I might be needing help, true enough, for the summer," said Axel.
"But what's it mean, anyway, you wanting to come back?"

"Nay, never mind me," says Barbro, putting it off. "I'll go on again
tomorrow. Go to Sellanraa and cross the hills. I've a place there."

"You've fixed up with some one there?"

"Ay."

"I might be needing summer help myself," says Axel again.

Barbro is wet through; she has other clothes in her sack, and must
change. "Don't mind about me," says Axel, and moves a bit toward the
door, no more.

Barbro takes off her wet clothes, they talking the while, and Axel
turning his head pretty often towards her. "Now you'd better go out
just a bit," says she.

"Out?" says he. And indeed 'twas no weather to go out in. He stands
there, seeing her more and more stripped; 'tis hard to keep his eyes
away; and Barbro is so thoughtless, she might well have put on dry
things bit by bit as she took oft the wet, but no. Her shift is thin
and clings to her; she unfastens a button at one shoulder, and turns
aside, 'tis nothing new for her. Axel dead silent then, and he sees
how she makes but a touch or two with her hands and washes the last of
her clothes from her. 'Twas splendidly done, to his mind. And there
she stands, so utterly thoughtless of her....

A while after, they lay talking together. Ay, he had need of help for
the summer, no doubt about that.

"They said something that way," says Barbro.

He had begun his mowing and haymaking all alone again; Barbro could
judge for herself how awkward it was for him now.--Ay, Barbro
understood.--On the other hand, it was Barbro herself that had run
away and left him before, without a soul to help him, he can't forget
that. And taken her rings with her into the bargain. And on top of all
that, shameful as it wa