In a few minutes Elga Skade, Margaret’s servant, said to her, “Here has come Michael 26 Snorro, and he would speak with thy husband.” Margaret rose, and went to him. He stood before the glowing peats, on the kitchen hearth, seeming, in the dim light, to tower to the very roof. Margaret looked up with a feeling akin to terror at the large white face in the gloom above her, and asked faintly, “What is’t thou wants, Snorro?”
“I would speak with Jan.”
“He is not come yet to his home. At what hour did he leave the store?”
At once Snorro’s suspicions were aroused. He stood silent a minute, then he said, “He may have gone round by thy father’s. I will wait.”
The man frightened her. She divined that he distrusted and disapproved of her; and she could ask nothing more. She left him with Elga, but in half an hour she became too restless to bear the suspense, and returned to the kitchen. Snorro gave her no opportunity to question him. He said at once, “It is few houses in Shetland a man can enter, and no one say to him, ‘Wilt thou eat or drink?’”
“I forgot, Snorro. I am troubled about Jan. What wilt thou have?”
“What thou hast ready, and Elga will get it for me.”
A few minutes later he sat down to eat with a calm deliberation which Margaret could not endure. She put on her cloak and hood, and calling Elga, said, “If he asks for me, say that I spoke of my father’s house.”
Then she slipped out of the front door, and went with fleet steps into the town. The street, which was so narrow that it was possible to shake hands across it, was dark and empty. The shops were all shut, and the living rooms looked mostly into the closes, or out to the sea. Only here and there a lighted square of glass made her shrink into the shadow of the gables. But she made her way without hindrance to a house near the main quay. It was well lighted, and there was the sound and stir of music and singing, of noisy conversation and laughter within it.