Late on that same night, the pious Ulrika was engaged in prayer. Prayer
with her was a sort of fanatical wrestling of the body as well as of the
soul,--she was never contented unless by means of groans and contortions
she could manage to work up by degrees into a condition of hysteria
resembling a mild epileptic attack, in which state alone she considered
herself worthy to approach the Deity. On this Occasion she had some
difficulty to attain the desired result--her soul, as she herself
expressed it, was "dry"--and her thoughts wandered,--though she pinched
her neck and arms with the hard resoluteness of a sworn flagellant, and
groaned, "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!" with indefatigable
earnestness. She was considerably startled in the midst of these
energetic devotions by a sudden jangling of sledge--bells, and aloud
knocking--a knocking which threatened to break down the door of the
small and humble house she inhabited. Hastily donning the coarse gown
and bodice she had recently taken off in order to administer
chastisement to her own flesh more thoroughly, she unfastened her bolts
and bars, and, lifting the latch, was confronted by Valdemar Svensen,
who, nearly breathless with swift driving through the snow-storm, cried
out in quick gasps--

"Come with me--come! She is dying!"

"God help the man!" exclaimed Ulrika startled. "Who is dying?"

"She--the Froeken Thelma--Lady Errington--she is all alone up there," and
he pointed distractedly in the direction from whence he had come. "I can
get no one in Bosekop,--the women are cowards all,--all afraid to go
near her," and he wrung his hands in passionate distress.

Ulrika pulled a thick shawl from the nail where it hung and wrapped it
round her.

"I am ready," she said, and without more delay, stepped into the waiting
sledge, while Valdemar, with an exclamation of gratitude and relief,
took his place beside her. "But how is it?" she asked, as the reindeer
started off at full speed, "how is it that the _bonde's_ daughter is
again at the Altenfjord?"

"I know not!" answered Svensen despairingly. "I would have given my life
not to have told her of her father's death."

"Death!" cried Ulrika. "Olaf Gueldmar _dead_! Impossible! Only last night
I saw him in the pride of his strength,--and thought I never had beheld
so goodly a man. Lord, Lord! That he should be _dead_!"

In a few words Svensen related all that had happened, with the exception
of the fire-buria