ad
known that it would end in some such way. Of course; it had been idiotic
to expect anything else. He listened smilingly for what else Leif had to
say.

The guardsman drew the last strap through the last buckle on his double
fur jacket, and turned toward the door. "It may be that I was unwise,
but it may also be that it will not matter much. The most desirable men
come home latest; we have not seen them all. It is likely that the next
feast will decide it."

Long after the door had closed upon Leif, and he had entered the sledge
and been whirled through the gate in a flurry of snow and a clamor of
bells, Alwin stood there, motionless. Tyrker dozed in the comfort-able
warmth, and woke to find him still staring down into the fire.

"What hast thou, my son?" he questioned, kindly. Alwin came to himself
with a start and a stare, and catching up his cloak, hurried out of the
room without replying.

"I will find Helga and tell her that she must put a stop to it," he was
saying to himself as he went. "That is what I will do. I will tell her
that she must stop it."

Pulling his cap lower as the keen wind cut his face, he hurried across
the courtyard toward the women's-house, trying to frame some excuse that
should bring Helga to the door where he could speak to her.

Half-way across, he bumped into Rolf.

"Hail, comrade! Have you left your eyes behind you in your hurry?" the
Wrestler greeted him, catching him by the shoulders and spinning him
round and round as he attempted to pass. "You look as sour as last
night's beer. What will you give to hear good tidings?"

"Nothing. Let me go. I am in a hurry," Alwin fumed.

"You have not outrun your curiosity, have you? I have just learned why
it is that Thorhild no longer speaks to Eric, and why he is in a mood to
smash things."

"Why?" asked Alwin, impatiently; but he no longer struggled, for he knew
it was useless in Rolf's grip.

"Because last night Thorhild told Eric that she had become a Christian.
Her bowerwoman told Helga, and when I met Helga--"

"Met her? Where? Is she in the women's-house?"

Rolf shook him by the shoulders he still held. "Is that all you have to
say to news of such importance? Do you not see that now that Thorhild
has been converted, Eric's men will no longer dare oppose us; lest in
time to come, when she has brought Eric round--"

"I say, where did you meet Helga?" roared Alwin.

Rolf released him, and stood looking at him with an inscr