t my opinion. I wish with all my heart I had."

"Wait," said Freydis, "until you have a man for a mate." But that made
Gudrid's eyes bright.

"You must not scorn my husband to my face," she said.

"Pooh!" said Freydis; "he's not here for long." Then Gudrid turned
pale, and grew very grave.

"You know that, then?"

"Why," said Freydis, "it is common knowledge. We have all had to do
with Thorberg. She has the second sight."

"That is dreadful to me," Gudrid said, but Freydis took it easily.

"You are woman enough to bear what you must bear," she said. "One of
you must die before the other. I hope you don't want to share graves
with such an old man as Thore? Well, then, suppose it had been you
that were to die first--do you suppose that Thore would have left you
for some other girl? What do you take him for? Not he. He's man
enough to have his pleasure. Trust him for that."

Such was Freydis, who treated her own husband with a high hand, and
sent for him when she wanted him.

Freydis spoke of the marriage of Thorstan and Gudrid as of an appointed
thing. "You will suit each other," she said. "There is good mettle in
Thorstan."

Gudrid could say nothing to that. The fate hung heavy upon her. She
felt that she was killing Thore, and had the knife in readiness with
which to kill--not Thorstan but herself. For she knew that she had
given Thorstan her heart, and that his death would be more certainly
her own.

Meantime, with a dreadful fascination, she watched the doom settling
like a storm about her husband Thore. She only saw it; he himself, now
that he was better, was unconscious of anything impending. He talked
hopefully of what he should do when Thorwald came home with news of
Wineland, having forgotten his dark commerce with Thorstan. But
Thorstan had not forgotten, and seemed to be waiting, like a raven on a
rock, until he should be dead. Gudrid, who was fanciful, saw herself
and him in that guise--silent and watchful, each on a rock, made
patient by certainty. All this was terrible to her, and made her old
before her time. She was not more than three-and-twenty even now.
Thorstan avoided her, which made matters no better, but worse, rather;
for she knew why he did it, and felt spotted, and longed to see him,
and felt that she was accursed.

So life drew along for that summer and autumn; and then the long
Greenland winter began, with the dark and the clinging, frozen fog.
Thore seeme