] My kinsman has already heard it. [To GUDMUND.]
Will you not lay aside your cloak?
GUDMUND.
I thank you, Dame Margit; but it seems to me cold here--colder
than I had foreseen.
BENGT.
For my part, I am warm enough; but then I have a hundred things
to do and to take order for. [To MARGIT.] Let not the time seem
long to our guest while I am absent. You can talk together of
the old days.
[Going.
MARGIT.
[Hesitating.] Are you going? Will you not rather--?
BENGT.
[Laughing, to GUDMUND, as he comes forward again.] See you well--
Sir Bengt of Solhoug is the man to make the women fain of him.
How short so e'er 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.
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