to get relays of the required reindeer,--and
that it might perhaps be wiser to wait for the next boat going to the
North Cape.

But Errington would hear of no more delays--each hour that passed filled
him with fresh anxieties--and once in Norway he could not rest. The idea
that Thelma might be ill--dying--or dead--gained on him with redoubled
force,--and his fears easily communicating themselves to Britta, who was
to the full as impatient as he, the two made up their minds, and
providing every necessary for the journey they could think of, they
started for the far sunless North, through a white, frozen land, which
grew whiter and more silent the further they went,--even as the brooding
sky above them grew darker and darker. The aurora borealis flashed its
brilliant shafts of color against the sable breast of heaven,--the tall
pines, stripped bare, every branch thick with snow and dropping icicles,
stood,--pale ghosts of the forest,--shedding frozen tears--the moon,
more like steel than silver, shone frostily cold, her light seeming to
deepen rather than soften the dreariness of the land--and
on--on--on--they went, Britta enveloped to the chin in furs, steadily
driving the strange elfin-looking steeds with their horned heads casting
long distorted shadows on the white ground,--and Philip beside her,
urging her on with feverish impatience, while he listened to the smooth
trot of the reindeer,--the tinkle of the bells on their harness, and the
hiss of the sledge across the sparkling snow.

Meanwhile, as he thus pursued his long and difficult journey, rumor was
very busy with his name in London. Everybody--that is, everybody worth
consideration in the circle of the "Upper Ten"--was talking about
him,--shrugging their shoulders, lifting their eyebrows and smiling
knowingly, whenever he was mentioned. He became more known in one day
than if he had served his country's interests in Parliament for years.

On the very morning after he had left the metropolis en route for
Norway, that admirably conducted society journal, the _Snake_,
appeared,--and of course, had its usual amount of eager purchasers,
anxious to see the latest bit of aristocratic scandal. Often these good
folks were severely disappointed--the _Snake_ was sometimes so
frightfully dull, that it had actually nothing to say against
anybody--then, naturally, it was not worth buying. But this time it was
really interesting--it knocked down--or tried to knock down--at