once what she was about to do, and stood waiting for her. Petra felt that she could not get past her without a struggle. Explanations would be of no avail; whatever words might come to her aid, nothing would be believed. Well—a struggle there must be then. Nothing in the world could be worse than the worst, and that she had been through.
“Where are you going?” the mother asked, softly.
“I must flee,” Petra answered as softly and with throbbing heart.
“And where can you go?”
“I do not know; but I must get away from here!”
She clasped her bundle more tightly and pressed on.
“No. Come along with me!” replied the mother, holding on to her arm. “I have provided for everything.”
At once Petra let go of herself, just as one relaxes one’s hold of a burden that has grown too heavy; she drew a long breath, as though after a struggle, and resigned herself to her mother. Gunlaug went before her into a small closet back of the kitchen, where there were no windows, and where burned a candle; it was here she had hidden herself when the tumult
