“How do I know?” said she.  “But, anyway, it won’t cost you anything.  I’ll earn the money myself.”

She had explained, too, why it was best for her to go just then; there were but two cows to milk, and in the spring there would be two more, besides all the goats with kids, and the busy season, and work enough right on till June.

“Do as you please,” said Axel.

It was not going to cost him anything, not at all.  But she must have some money to start with, just a little; there was the journey, and the dentist to pay, and besides, she must have one of the new cloaks and some other little things.  But, of course, if he didn’t care to....

“You’ve had money enough up to now,” said he.

“H’m,” said she.  “Anyway, it’s all gone.”

“Haven’t you put by anything?”

“Put by anything?  You can look in my box it you like.  I never put by anything in Bergen, and.  I got more wages then.”

“I’ve no money to give you,” said he.

He had but little faith in her ever coming back at all, and she had plagued him so much with her humours this way and that; he had grown indifferent at last.  And though he gave her money in the end, it was nothing to speak of; but he took no notice when she packed away an enormous hoard of food to take with her, and he drove her down himself, with her box, to the village to meet the steamer.

And that was done.

He could have managed alone on the place, he had learned to do so before, but it was awkward with the cattle; if ever he had to leave home, there was none to look to them.  The storekeeper in the village had urged him to get Oline to come for the winter, she had been at Sellanraa for years before; she was old now, of course, but fit and able to work.  And Axel did send for Oline, but she had not come, and sent no word.

Meantime, he worked in the forest, threshed out his little crop of corn, and tended his cattle.  It was a quiet and lonely life.  Now and again Sivert from Sellanraa would drive past on his way to and from the village, taking down loads of wood, or hides, or farm produce, but rarely bringing anything up home; there was little they needed to buy now at Sellanraa.

Now and again, too, Brede Olsen would come trudging along, more frequently of late—­whatever he might be after.  It looked as if he were trying to make himself indispensable to the telegraph people in the little time that remained, so as to keep his job.  He never came in to see Axel now that Barbro was gone, but went straight by—­a piece of high-and-mightiness ill fitted to his state, seeing that he was still living on at Breidablik and had not moved.  One day, when he was passing without so much as a word of greeting, Axel stopped him, and asked when he had thought of getting out of the place.

“What about Barbro, and the way she left you?” asked Brede in return.  And one word led to another:  “You sent her off with neither help nor means, ’twas a near thing but she never got to Bergen at all.”