woman did not refuse
to take one of his men, and did not agree. She seemed stupid with
misery. He told her that he should send her a man, and went out. In
every house in the Settlement was much the same story. Sickness and
death on all hands, but no refusals. At the end of his rounds he had
managed to place out all hands. There remained himself and Gudrid.
There was no place for them--not room enough to die in. He had asked
if there were no headman in Lucefrith, and was told of one Thorstan
Black; but he, it seemed, lived far off--over the hills, they said--and
no way of getting at him through the snow.

Then he went back to the ship and told his men to get ready to go
ashore. He took them off by companies in the boat, and saw them all
indoors before he left them. The last man under cover, he rowed back
alone to the ship. At this extremity, with frozen death and silence
all about him, he felt a strange uplifting of the heart in the thought
that he and Gudrid were now alone indeed--they two and Love. And what
if Death were a fourth in the party? Ah, he was welcome too. But
before Death came Love should be there. He rowed gaily, fiercely, that
he might be with her the sooner.

He was warmed by his exercise when he was on deck again, and wildly
happy in the thought which possessed him.

He went below and saw his love watching for him. "My heart, I am
coming to you," he said. He took off his furs and most of his clothes
and got into the bed with her. He held her close to him, with a
passion which despair may have quickened into flame. Wildly as he had
loved her since she had given him herself, he never loved her as he did
now, when the end seemed close upon them.

For a week they lived so, the supreme week of Thorstan's and Gudrid's
lives. They were utterly alone, and they never left each other's arms,
but when Thorstan was busy mending the brasier fire, or getting food.
They cherished each other, the fire in them at least never went out;
they loved and slept, they loved again and slept. It was the last leap
of their fire, it was the swan-song of their love maybe; but it was
beautiful, and as strong as if they were breasting a great flight
through space. Thorstan sang to Gudrid, he told her tales of lovers,
he put their joint lives into verses; but he had not a word to say of
the future. Here fate was too heavy for either love or religion. Fate
stood with stretched-out arms holding a black curtain