suit, first in Denmark and then in
England, were followed after a while by a fourth. This was a message
from the Governor at Reykjavik to the old priest at Grimsey, that, as
he valued his livelihood and life he was to keep close guard and
watch over his prisoner, and, if need be, to warn him that a worse
fate might come to him at any time.

Now, the evil hour when this final message came was just upon the
good time when the apothecary from Husavik brought the joyful tidings
that Sunlocks might recover his sight, and the blow was the heavier
for the hope that had gone before it. All Grimsey shared both, for
the fisherfolk had grown to like the pale stranger who, though so
simple in speech and manner, had been a great man in some way that
they scarcely knew--having no one to tell them, being so far out of
the world--but had fallen upon humiliation and deep dishonor. Michael
Sunlocks himself took the blow with composure, saying it was plainly
his destiny and of a piece with the rest of his fate, wherein no
good thing had ever come to him without an evil one coming on the back
of it. The tender heart of the old priest was thrown into wild
commotion, for Sunlocks had become, during the two years of their
life together, as a son to him, a son that was as a father
also, a stay and guardian, before whom his weakness--that of
intemperance--stood rebuked.

But the trouble of old Sir Sigfus was as nothing to that of Greeba.
In the message of the Governor she saw death, instant death, death
without word or warning, and every hour of her life thereafter was
beset with terrors. It was the month of February; and if the snow
fell from the mossy eaves in heavy thuds, she thought it was the
muffled tread of the guards who were to come for her husband; and if
the ice-floes that swept down from Greenland cracked on the coast of
Grimsey, she heard the shot that was to end his life. When Sunlocks
talked of destiny she cried, and when the priest railed at Jorgen
Jorgensen (having his own reason to hate him) she cursed the name of
the tyrant. But all the while she had to cry without tears and curse
only in the dark silence of her heart, though she was near to
betraying herself a hundred times a day.

"Oh, it is cruel," she thought, "very, very cruel. Is this what I
have waited for all this weary, weary time?"

And though so lately her love had fought with her pity to prove that
it was best for both of them that Sunlocks should remain bli