His eyes gazed into his friend's eyes with sombre meaning. "I
finished the records this morning."

"You finished the records this morning?" Rolf repeated incredulously.

A note of impatience sharpened the other's voice. "I fail to understand
what there is in that which surprises you. Certainly you must have heard
Leif say, last night, that a hundred words more would end the work. And
it was your own judgment that Kark would wait no longer than its
completion--"

Rolf struck the tree they leaned against, with sudden vehemence. "The
snake!" he cried. "That, then, is why he showed his fangs at me this
morning in such a jeering smile. Yet, how could I believe that a man of
your wit would allow such a thing to come to pass? With a mouthful of
words you could have persuaded Leif that there was a host of things
which he had forgotten. You could have prolonged the task--"

Alwin shook his head with stern though quiet decision.

"No, I have had enough of lying," he said. "Not for my life, nor for
Helga's love, will I carry this deceit further. Such a smothering fog
has it become around me, that I can neither see nor breathe through its
choking folds... But let us leave off this talk. Since it is likely that
my limbs will have a long rest after to-night, let us spend to-day
roving about in search of what sport we can find. If I may not pass my
last day with the man and woman that I hold dearest, still you are next
in my love; you will accompany me, will you not?"

"Wherever you choose," Rolf assented.

They set forth as silently as on that spring morning, two years before,
when they had set out from the Norwegian camp to witness Thorgrim
Svensson's horse-fight. Now, as then, the air was golden with spring
sunshine, and the whole world seemed a-throb with the pure joy of
living. There was gladness in the chirp of the birds, and content in the
drone of the insects; and all the squirrels in the place seemed to be
gadding on joyful errands, for one could not turn a corner that a group
of them did not scatter from before his feet. So common a thing as a
dewdrop caught in a cobweb became more beautiful than jewel-spangled
lace. The rustling of the quail in the brush, even the glimpse of a
coiled snake basking on a sunny spot of earth, was fraught with interest
because it spoke of life, glad and fearless and free.

They visited the nook on the bluff, screened once more in fragrant,
rustling greenness; then descended to the rive