 Pastor Poul is warned about her but falls for her charms, despite the fact that when three French ships come to port she follows the example of most of the other women in the town and allows herself to be seduced by a French sailor.As the widow of the parish, she has a house of her own on Vágar, and she and Poul leave for their respective homes there.Inevitably, they marry, but when in Tórshavn on a subsequent visit, Barbara meets and falls for the foppish Andreas Heyde (the instrument of fate in the second half of the novel), on a research trip from Copenhagen.