Axel goes back to his work, and 'tis but little he gets done, but
makes a bit of noise with planing and hammering, so she can hear. At
last he gets the window wedged in, and stops the frame all round with
moss.

That evening Barbro seems not to care for her food, but goes about,
all the same, busy with this and that--goes to the cowshed at
milking-time, only stepping a thought more carefully over the
door-sill. She went to bed in the hayshed as usual. Axel went in twice
to look at her, and she was sleeping soundly. She had a good night.

Next morning she was almost as usual, only so hoarse she could hardly
speak at all, and with a long stocking wound round her throat. They
could not talk together. Days passed, and the matter was no longer
new; other things cropped up, and it slipped aside. The new house
ought by rights to have been left a while for the timber to work
together and make it tight and sound, but there was no time for that
now; they had to get it into use at once, and the new cowshed ready.
When it was done, and they had moved in, they took up the potatoes,
and after that there was the corn to get in. Life was the same as
ever.

But there were signs enough, great or small, that things were
different now at Maaneland. Barbro felt herself no more at home there
now than any other serving-maid; no more bound to the place. Axel
could see that his hold on her had loosened with the death of the
child. He had thought to himself so confidently: wait till the child
comes! But the child had come and gone. And at last Barbro even took
off the rings from her fingers, and wore neither.