nown that you needed comfort even more than I; and my
heart has ached over you till once the tears came into my eyes."

Her lover gazed at her hungrily. "Gladly would I give every gift that
Leif has lavished on me, if I might take you in my arms and kiss away
the smart of those drops."

A fierce gleam narrowed Helga's starry eyes. "Before we part," she said
between her teeth, "you shall kiss my eyes once for every tear they have
shed; and you shall kiss my mouth three times for farewell,--though
every man in Greenland should wish to prevent it."

Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with a little cry of
despair.

"But you must never come near me after I am married!" she breathed. "The
moment after my eyes had fallen upon your face, I should turn upon my
husband and kill him."

"If it had not happened that I had already slain him," Alwin murmured.
Then he said, more steadily, "This is useless talk, sweetheart. Tell me
the thought which comforted you. At least it will be a joy to me to
cherish in my heart what you have treasured in your brain."

Helga looked out over the tumbling water with eyes grown wide and
thoughtful.

"I will not be so hopeful as to call it a comfort yet," she said, "too
vague is its shape for that. It is a faint plan which I have built on my
knowledge of Gilli's nature. As well as I, you know that he cares for
nothing but what is gainful for him. Now if I could manage to make
myself so ugly that no chief would care to make offers for me... is it
not likely that my father would cease to value me and be even glad to
get rid of me, to you? I would disfigure myself in no such way that the
ugliness would be lasting," she reassured him, hastily. "But if I should
weep my eyes red and my cheeks pale, and cut off my hair... It would all
come right in time; you would not mind the waiting?"

Alwin looked at her with a touch of wonder.

"And you would go ugly for me?" he asked. "Hide your beauty and become a
jest where you have always been a queen, for no other reason than to
sink so low that I might reach up and pluck you? Would you think it
worth while to do that for me?"

But his meaning was lost on Helga's simplicity. She gathered only that
he thought the scheme possible, and hope bloomed like roses in her
cheeks.

"Oh, comrade, do you indeed think favorably of the plan?" she whispered,
eagerly. "I had not the heart to hope much from it; everything has
failed us so. If you think it i