l in the Fjord.

But Ulrika immediately asked, "Is his body still in the house?"

Svensen looked at her darkly. "Hast thou never heard Ulrika," he said
solemnly, "that the bodies of men who follow Olaf Gueldmar's creed,
disappear as soon as the life departs from them? It is a
mystery--strange and terrible! But this is true--my master's
sailing-ship has gone, and his body with it--and I know not where!"

Ulrika surveyed him steadily with a slow, incredulous smile. After a
pause, she said--

"Fidelity in a servant is good, Valdemar Svensen! I know you well--I
also know that a pagan shrinks from Christian burial. Enough said--I
will ask no more--but if Olaf Gueldmar's ship's has gone, and he with
it,--I warn you, the village will wonder."

"I cannot help it," said Svensen with cold brevity. "I have spoken
truth--he has gone! I saw him die--and then vanish. Believe it or not as
you will, I care not!"

And he drove on in silence. Ulrika was silent too.

She had known Valdemar Svensen for many years--he was a man universally
liked and respected at all the harbors and different fishing-stations of
Norway, and his life was an open book to everybody, with the exception
of one page, which was turned down and sealed,--this was the question of
his religious belief. No one knew what form of faith he followed,--it
was only when he went to live with the _bonde_, after Thelma's
marriage,--that the nature of his creed was dimly suspected. But Ulrika
had no dislike for him on this account,--her opinions had changed very
much during the past few months. As devout a Lutheran as ever, she began
to entertain a little more of the true spirit of Christianity--that
spirit of gentle and patient tolerance which, full of forbearance
towards all humanity, is willing to admit the possibility of a little
good in everything, even in the blind tenets of a heathen creed. Part of
this alteration in her was due to the gratitude she secretly felt
towards the Gueldmar family, for having saved from destruction,--albeit
unconscious of his parentage,--Sigurd, the child she had attempted to
murder. The hideous malevolence of Lovisa Elsland's nature had shown her
that there _may_ be bad Lutherans,--the invariable tenderness displayed
by the Gueldmars for her unrecognized, helpless and distraught son,--had
proved to her that there _may_ be good heathens. Hearing thus suddenly
of the _bonde's_ death, she was strangely affected--she could almost
have wept.