what
I've been saying...." The words bubbled pitifully from the pale lips,
like the last drops from an empty barrel.

"Well for you!" Olof set the man down and loosed his hold. "Or I'd....
Huh! Get out of this--d'you hear?"

The man staggered, looking this way and that, then turned and stole
from the room without a word.

* * * * *

Olof stood alone. His brain was in a whirl, dazzling lights floated
before his eyes.

"It must be true! No one would ever dare unless...." There was no
doubt in his mind--it was only too natural that it should be so. The
retribution he had feared so long--it had come at last, and ruined all
in a moment.

The fiddler was playing louder than before; the whole house
shook--they were dancing again. To Olof the music seemed like a
mighty peal of scornful laughter, as if the host of people there were
laughing and dancing for joy at his shame.

"Make an end--make an end!" he cried to himself, and he rushed from
the room. How he was to end it he did not know--only that this was
unendurable--it was hell!

* * * * *

Smiling faces greeted Olof as he appeared in the doorway and stood
a moment, unable to get through the press. His brain cleared a
little--after all, he could not drive the guests from the house like a
madman with a knife in his hand.

They stood aside to let him pass, and he slipped round by the wall to
the farther end of the room, and went up to the fiddler.

"Will you sell it," he whispered--"sell your fiddle? There's a man
wants to buy it--he's asked me. Never mind about the price--say what
you like."

"Why ... I don't know. 'Tis an old friend," answered the man, playing
more softly as he spoke.

"Will you sell it? At your own price. Yes or no?"

"H'm ... well, say thirty marks?"

"Good! The man'll be here directly. And now, play a polka--and play
like the devil himself, as if you were kissing your girl for the last
time. The fastest you've ever played."

The fiddler nodded.

* * * * *

Olof walked up to a young girl and bowed. The fiddler broke off, and
struck up a polka at such a furious pace that the dancers stopped and
looked at one another in surprise.

But Olof went off in wild career with his partner, and several other
pairs followed. These, however, soon fell out, and all stood watching
the bridegroom, who danced like a man bewitched. His eyes blazed,
a stra