But, in any case, her honour must be saved.
A drowsy weariness came over him. How empty life was, after all! What had he, himself, got out of it in return for all his labour? His years of work had been for the benefit of others. But was his work of any great importance, after all? There had been a time when he had thought only of fame and pleasure. Then he had seen that there were other things more worth regard. At first he had regarded the domains of love as sacred and inviolable, but after a time had plunged recklessly across the border. And since then he had always regarded himself as one who could never hope to meet with his heart’s desire, his ideal. The whole question of love seemed one of but slight importance to him thenceforward. And he had been occupied with other things.
It all came back to him now, as he thought of his brother’s relations with his old-time playmate, the fair-haired child whom he had known later as a tall, bright-spirited girl.
And now he was to marry her. She was a woman now—and his brother had betrayed her. It was a thing that had to be, for her honour’s sake and that of the family name. His brother’s child would be brought up as his. He was to marry, and his wife would bear a child—another’s child.
How strangely the threads of life were woven! Well, after all, why not? It mattered little—nothing really mattered. What would the child be like? he wondered. Boy or girl? And what was the mother like? Again, it did not matter much.
Anyhow, this must be the last phase—the final stage of his life. It must end as it had begun—at Borg. Like his forefathers, he was fated to be a link in a chain, rather than an individual.
Only it meant now that all his dreams of something greater and better were at an end.
He glanced up and saw that it was light outside; the moon had come out from behind a hill. Moved by a sudden impulse, he took his hat and coat and went out.
The sky was cloudy, semi-darkness and bright moonlight alternating in quick succession; the earth looked cold and forbidding under a heavy frost, with the streams showing up as dark lines through the white.
Ormarr took a path he knew, leading to Borgara, where as a lad he had guarded the wool by night. Leaning against a rock, he stood, letting thoughts and fancies play through his mind at random. The happenings of the day, the revelations he had heard, seemed more like a dream than any reality.