Oline was an invaluable help
to him; and in return he had to answer a host of questions she put.
Among other things, he said yes, it might perhaps come to having Axel
arrested too. At that, Oline clasped her hands in dismay at all the
wickedness she had got mixed up with here, and only wished she were
out of the place, far away from it all. "But the girl," she whispered,
"what about Barbro herself?"
"The girl Barbro," said the Lensmand, "she's under arrest now in
Bergen. The law must take its course," said he. And he took the little
body and went back again to the village....
Little wonder, then, that Axel Stroem was anxious. He had spoken out to
the Lensmand and denied nothing; he was in part responsible for the
coming of the child at all, and in addition, he had dug a grave for
it. And now he was asking Geissler what he had better do next. Would
he have to go in to the town, to a new and worse examination, and be
tortured there?
Geissler was not the man he had been--no; and the long story had
wearied him, he seemed duller now, whatever might be the cause.
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