spite. "What was the message that you
wrote to my mother for Leif?"

"I think I can remember the exact words," he answered readily, "it gave
me so much trouble to spell them. It read this way, after the greeting:
'Do you remember the child you sent to Eric? She is here in Norway with
me. She is well grown and handsome. I go back the second day after this.
It will be a great grief to her if she is obliged to go also. If her
father could see her, it is likely he would be willing to give her a
home in Norway. It would even be worth while coming all the way to
Greenland after her. It is certain that Gilli would think so, if you
could manage that he should see her.' I think that was all, lady."

"If Gilli is what I suspect him to be, that is more than enough," Helga
said slowly. She raised her head and looked straight into his eyes.
"Answer me this,--you know and must tell,--is he a high-minded warrior
like Leif, or is he a money-loving trader?"

"Lady," said Alwin desperately, "if you will have the truth, he is a
mean-spirited churl who thinks that the only thing in the world is to
have property."

Helga drew a long breath, and her slender hands clenched in her lap.
"Now I have found what I have suspected. Answer this truthfully also: If
I go back to him, is it not likely that he will marry me to the first
creature who offers to make a good bargain with him?"

"Yes," said Alwin.

For days he had been watching her with uneasy pity, whenever in his
mind's eye he saw her in the power of the unscrupulous trader, It had
made him uncomfortable to feel that he was the tool that had brought it
about, even though he knew he was as innocent as the bark on which he
had written.

Drop by drop the blood sank out of Helga's face. Spark by spark, the
light died out of her eyes. Like some poor trapped animal, she sat
staring dully ahead of her.

It was more than Alwin could bear in silence. He leaned forward and
shook her arm. "Lady, do anything rather than despair. Get into a rage
with me,--though Heaven knows I never intended your misfortune! Yet it
is natural you should feel hard toward me. I--"

She stared at him dully. "Why should I be angry with you? You could not
help what you did; and Leif thought I would wish rather to go to my own
mother than to Thorhild."

It had never occurred to Alwin that she would be reasonable. His remorse
became the more eager. He bethought himself of some slight comfort. "At
least it cannot h