"Now I have tokened myself to you, my love," he said. "Do you wear that upon a chain which I will give you presently, and remember when you look at it, or take it in your hands, that I wear the fellow. If ever you want me, you have only to let that half-moon of gold come into Orme's hands, and sooner or later you will see me again. And so let it be between us from henceforward if you will."
She took the coin, and closed her hand upon it until he should give her the chain, but having it, she could not be to him as she had been before. She sat up straight and looked at the sea. Her hand was free for him; but he did not take it, and she felt sure he would not.
A constraint fell upon them; neither could find anything to say. Fate was between them.
So it was until Orme came back with his news.
He had nothing good to report. Thorbeorn had heard him with impatience, and as soon as he had ended put himself into a rage. His thin neck stiffened, his faded eyes showed fire. "Do you offer for my daughter on behalf of a thrall's son? Well for him he put you forward instead of a smaller man. But I take it ill coming from you whom I have always treated as a friend."
Orme had excused himself on the score of Einar's merits—for which he could answer, he said—and well-being. "He has two ships at sea in the Norway trade. His credit stands high on each side the water. There's many a worse man than he well married—and he loves your Gudrid beyond price. There is nothing he will not put down for her."
But that had wounded Thorbeorn in his most sensitive part. He knew that he was ruined and could not bear that other men should know it also. "It is hard that his money should tempt you to insult a poor man," he said. "I am what I am, and that is a man not so poor but he can keep his honour clear. You must think me poor indeed in other things than goods when you ask me to trade my own flesh and blood. Let me hear no more of it for fear I may get angry. It is the case, I see, that I rate my daughter's marriage more highly than you seem able to conceive of. I made a great mistake when I left her in your charge precisely to avoid what you have brought upon me. Now she shall come home, where she can be valued at the worth of her name and person. That is what I have to say to you, Orme." With that he had looked Orme straight in the face, and there had been no more to urge.
Einar heard it from Orme, but it was Halldis who told Gudrid the news. Gudrid received it in silence, but put her hand up and laid it over the token which fluttered in her bosom. "My pretty one," said Halldis, "I blame myself."
"No, no," Gudrid said, "you must not do that. Nobody is at fault." But Halldis thought Einar had been much to blame. She would have comforted Gudrid and made much of her if she had been able—but Gudrid would not have that. She served the table as before, and sat by Halldis afterwards while the men talked and passed the mead about. She was pale and silent, but did not give way, nor leave them till her usual time. When she was in her bed she sobbed, and buried her hot face in the bolster; but even then she did not cry. She was always impatient of deeds which led nowhere—and crying is a great deed.
In the morning they parted. "I shall sail as soon as may be now," he told her. "Iceland will be hateful to me if it hold us two apart."