“You are very noble, Jason,” she said.
“I was thinking of myself,” he said.
“Jason,” she cried, “I meant to ask you to release me, but you have put me to shame, and now I ask you to choose for me. I have promised myself to you, and if you wish it I will keep my promise.”
At that he stood, a sorrowful man, beside her for a moment’s space before he answered her, and only the tones of his voice could tell how much his answer cost him.
“No—ah, no,” he said; “no, Greeba, to keep your promise to me would be too cruel to you.”
“Think of yourself now,” she cried.
“There’s no need to do that,” he said, “for either way I am a broken man. But you shall not also be broken-hearted, and neither shall the man who parts us.”
Saying this, a ghastly white hand seemed to sweep across his face, but at the next moment he smiled feebly and said, “God bless you both.”
Greeba goes to Michael and Iceland, and Jason, remembering his vow, follows her. A succession of events have made Sunlocks the Governor of Iceland, for its short-lived Republic. Knowing that the man he is in search of is the Governor, Jason now finds that the Governor is Michael Sunlocks. Beside himself with the knowledge of all the man has unconsciously stolen from him, Jason dogs him with intent to kill, but, being discovered by Greeba, is denounced by her and sentenced to penal servitude in the sulphur-mines.
The six sons of Adam Fairbrother, discovering the purpose of Greeba’s flight from their home, decide that in brotherliness they will go to her and share her prosperity. Failing in their purpose, they successfully attempt to poison Michael’s mind against her, telling him that Greeba had loved Jason at the time that she had left the Isle of Man. Michael, in his revulsion of feeling, determines to take from Greeba the position for the sake of which he believes her to have married, and summons the Althing in order to resign his office of Governor. While the meeting is in progress, the doors of the Senate House are locked, and the building surrounded by Danish soldiers. The Republic is overthrown, and Michael Sunlocks, as a political prisoner, is sent to the mines.