nd there, the little
village looked as though it had been deserted long ago--a picture of
frost-bound silence and solitude.

Meanwhile, in Lovisa Elsland's close and comfortless dwelling, stood
Olaf Gueldmar. His strong, stately figure, wrapped in furs, seemed almost
to fill the little place--he had thrown aside the thick scarf of wadmel
in which he had been wrapped to the eyes while driving in the teeth of
the wind,--and he now lifted his fur cap, thus displaying his silvery
hair, ruddy features, and open, massive brow. At that moment a woman who
was busying herself in putting fresh pine-logs on the smouldering fire,
turned and regarded him intently.

"Lord, Lord!" she muttered--"'tis a man of men,--he rejoiceth in his
strength, even as the lion,--and of what avail shall the curse of the
wicked avail against the soul that is firmly established!"

Gueldmar heard her not--he was looking towards a low pallet bed, on which
lay, extended at full length, an apparently insensible form.

"Has she been long thus?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Since last night," replied the woman--no other than Mr. Dyceworthy's
former servant, Ulrika. "She wakened suddenly, and bade me send for you.
To-day she has not spoken."

The _bonde_ sighed somewhat impatiently. He approached the now blazing
pine-logs, and as he drew off his thick fur driving-gloves, and warmed
his hands at the cheerful blaze, Ulrika again fixed her dull eyes upon
him with something of wonder and reluctant admiration. Presently she
trimmed an oil-lamp, and set it, burning dimly, on the table. Then she
went to the bed and bent over it,--after a pause of several minutes, she
turned and made a beckoning sign with her finger. Gueldmar advanced a
little,--when a sudden eldritch shriek startled him back, almost
curdling the blood in his veins. Out of the deep obscurity, like some
gaunt spectre rising from the tomb, started a face, wrinkled,
cadaverous, and distorted by suffering,--a face in which the fierce,
fevered eyes glittered with a strange and dreadful brilliancy--the face
of Lovisa Elsland, stern, forbidding, and already dark with the shadows
of approaching death. She stared vacantly at Gueldmar, whose picturesque
head was illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire--and feebly shaded her
eyes as though she saw something that hurt them. Ulrika raised her on
her tumbled pillow, and saying, in cold, unmoved tones--"Speak now, for
the time is short," she once more beckoned