Book 3 The Land of the Long Shadow Chapter 33

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

"She--the Fröken 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 Güldmar 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-burial in the Fjord.

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