“The rattle was bought for little Jan. It was in his father’s pocket when he was shipwrecked.”
She stood with it in her hand, gazing down upon the tarnished bells, and answered not a word. Snorro looked at her angrily, and then stooped down, and softly kissed the sleeping child.
“Good-by, Margaret Vedder!”
She had lifted the locket in the interval, and was mechanically passing her fingers along the chain. “It is the very pattern I wished for,” she whispered to her heart, “I remember drawing it for him.” She did not hear Snorro’s “good-by,” and he stood watching her curiously a moment.
“I said ‘good-by,’ Margaret Vedder.”
“Good-by,” she answered mechanically. Her whole soul was moved. She was in a maze of tender, troubled thoughts, but Snorro perceived nothing but her apparent interest in the jewels. He could not forget his last sight of her standing, so apparently calm, with her eyes fixed 250 upon the locket and chain that dangled from her white hand. “She was wondering how much they cost Jan,” he thought bitterly; “what a cold, cruel woman she is!”
That she had not asked him about his own affairs, why he left so hurriedly, how he was going, for what purpose, how long he was to be away, was a part of her supreme selfishness, Snorro thought. He could no longer come into her life, and so she cared nothing about him. He wished Dr. Balloch could have seen her as he did, with poor Jan’s love-gifts in her hands. With his heart all aflame on Jan’s noble deeds, and his imagination almost deifying the man, the man he loved so entirely, Margaret’s behavior was not only very much misunderstood by Snorro, it was severely and unjustly condemned.
“What did God make women for?” he asked angrily, as he strode back over the moor. “I hope Jan has forgotten her, for it is little she thinks of him.”
On reaching his home again he dressed himself in his best clothes, for he could not sleep. He walked up and down the old town, and over the quays, and stood a five minutes before 251 Peter Fae’s store, and so beguiled the hours until he could go on board “The Lapwing.”
At five o’clock he saw Lord Lynne come aboard, and the anchor was raised. Snorro lifted his cap, and said, “Good morning, Lord Lynne;” and my lord answered cheerily, “Good morning, Snorro. With this wind we shall make a quick passage to Wick.”