ew livid and white by turns. They were
sitting at supper in Government House, and, with an oath, the
Governor brought his fist down on the table. It was a lie; his
daughter knew no more of the man than he did. The Count shrugged his
shoulders and asked where she was then, that she was not with them.
Jorgen answered, with an absent look, that she was forced to keep her
room.

At that moment a message came for the Count. It was urgent and could
not wait. The Count went to the door, and, returning presently, asked
if Jorgen was sure that his daughter was in the house. Certain of it
he was, for she was ill, and the days were deepening to winter. But
for all his assurance, Jorgen sprang up from his seat and made for
his daughter's chamber. She was not there, and the room was empty.
The Count met him in the corridor. "Follow me," he whispered, and
Jorgen followed, his proud, stern head bent low.

In the rear of the Government House at Reykjavik there is a small
meadow. That night it was inches deep in the year's first fall of
snow, but two persons stood together there, close locked in each
other's arms--Stephen Orry and the daughter of Jorgen Jorgensen. With
the tread of a cat a man crept up behind them. It was the brother of
Patricksen. At his back came the Count and the Governor. The snow
cloud lifted, and a white gush of moonlight showed all. With the cry
of a wild beast Jorgen flung himself between his daughter and her
lover, leapt at Stephen and struck him hard on the breast, and then,
as the girl dropped to her knees at his feet, he cursed her.

"Bastard," he shrieked, "there's no blood of mine in your body. Go to
your filthy offal, and may the devil damn you both."

She stopped her ears to shut out the torrent of a father's curse,
but before the flood of it was spent she fell backward cold and
senseless, and her upturned face was whiter than the snow. Then her
giant lover lifted her in his arms as if she had been a child, and
strode away in silence.

CHAPTER II.

THE MOTHER OF A MAN.

The daughter of the Governor-General and the seaman of Stappen were
made man and wife. The little Lutheran priest, who married them,
Sigfus Thomson, a worthy man and a good Christian, had reason to
remember the ceremony. Within a week he was removed from his
chaplaincy at the capital to the rectory of Grimsey, the smallest
cure of the Icelandic Church, on an island separated from the
mainland by seven Danish miles of sea