But they shook their heads, clung to her closer, and so all three passed into the room together. The room was not darkened; but sweet juniper-leaves had been spread over the floor. Katharine led them like two little stricken children to the bed of death: one of them a child indeed, and the other an old woman of seventy, childlike in her need of protecting help.
Then Katharine bent forward, and with trembling hands reverently lifted the covering from the dead man's face—and they looked.
A cry rose to their lips.
The dead man was not their beloved one.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
Like children, too, Katharine led them from the room and took them into the old Peise-stue below. Tante had for the time being forgotten her Viking origin. Her nerve completely forsook her; and she cried abundantly, from the strain and the merciful loosening of the tension. Once she smiled through her tears as she pressed Katharine's hand and gave Alan a reassuring nod.
"Ak," she said, "this is not the correct behaviour of an abandoned sea-robber, is it?" And to Alan she added quaintly:
"Don't I make a beautiful comforter, kjaere? Ought not I to be proud of myself?"
He made no answer, but came close to her, to show that she was a comforting presence. He was painfully quiet—indeed, he seemed half-bewildered; and Katharine, glancing at his ashen face, knew that he was still under the spell of death's mysterious majesty. She wished that they had not suffered him to go into that room of death; and yet he would never have been satisfied to remain outside and take their word; it was perhaps his own father lying there, and he had to see for himself. But that part of it was over, and she felt she must break the spell for him at once. She thought of scores of things to say; but nothing seemed suitable. Suddenly, without thinking, she said: