“Mark my words, Toenne,” she said hoarsely, half choked with pain, “that the day you do that thing will be the day of my death.”

After that no more words were exchanged between them, but they remained sitting on the doorstep until the day came.  Neither found a word to appease or to conciliate; each felt fear and scorn of the other.  The one measured the other by the standard of his own anger, and they found each other narrow-minded and bad-tempered.

After that night Jofrid could not refrain from letting Toenne feel that he was her inferior.  She let him understand in the presence of others that he was stupid, and helped him with his work so that he had to think how much stronger she was.  She evidently wished to take away from him all rights as master of the house.  Sometimes she pretended to be very lively, to distract him and to prevent him from brooding.  He had not done anything to carry out his plan, but she did not believe that he had given it up.

During this time Toenne became more and more as he was before his marriage.  He grew thin and pale, silent and slow-witted.  Jofrid’s despair increased each day, for it seemed as if everything was to be taken from her.  Her love for Toenne came back, however, when she saw him unhappy.  “What is any of it worth to me if Toenne is ruined?” she thought.  “It is better to go into slavery with him than to see him die in freedom.”

***

Jofrid, however, could not at once decide to obey Toenne.  She fought a long and severe fight.  But one morning she awoke in an unusually calm and gentle mood.  Then she thought that she could now do what he demanded.  And she waked him, saying that it should be as he wished.  Only that one day he should grant her to say farewell to everything.

The whole forenoon she went about strangely gentle.  Tears rose easily to her eyes.  The heath was beautiful that day for her sake, she thought.  Frost had passed over it, the flowers were gone, and the whole moor had turned brown.  But when it was lighted by the slanting rays of the autumn sun, it looked as if the heather glowed red once more.  And she remembered the day when she saw Toenne for the first time.

She wished that she might see the old king once more, for he had helped her to find her happiness.  She had been seriously afraid of him of late.  She felt as if he were lying in wait to seize her.  But now she thought he could no longer have any power over her.  She would remember to look for him towards night when the moon rose.

It happened that a couple of wandering musicians came by about noon.  Jofrid had the idea to ask them to stop at her house the whole afternoon, for she wished to have a dance.  Toenne had to hasten to her parents and ask them to come.  And her small brothers and sisters ran down to the village for the other guests.  Soon many people had collected.