"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-burial in the Fjord.
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