id not care to make his wife
unhappy, he determined to deceive her. It was snowing, and likely to
snow; Margaret would not come down to the store in such weather. So he
said to her, "Michael Snorro hath a fever. He can not work. That is a
bad business, for it is only I that can fill his place. The work will
keep me late, wait not for me." To himself he said: "To leave her
alone a few nights, that will be a good thing; when I stay next at my
own hearth, she may have something to say to me."

Margaret's nature was absolutely truthful. She never doubted Jan's
words. In that love of self which was a miserable omnipresence with
her, she was angry with Snorro for being sick and thus interfering in
her domestic life, but she fully believed her husband's statement.

Jan spent two evenings at Ragon Torr's, but on the third morning his
conscience smote him a little. He looked at Margaret, and wished she
would ask, "Wilt thou come home early to-night?" He would gladly have
answered her, "I will come at whatever hour thou desirest." But,
unfortunately, Margaret was at that moment counting her eggs, and
there were at least two missing. She was a woman who delighted in
small economies; she felt that she was either being wronged by her
servant, or that her fowls were laying in strange nests. At that
moment it was a subject of great importance to her; and she never
noticed the eager, longing look in Jan's eyes.

When he said at last. "Good-by to thee, Margaret;" she looked up from
her basket of eggs half reproachfully at him. She felt that Jan might
have taken more interest in her loss. She had not yet divined that
these small savings of hers were a source of anger and heart-burning
to him. He knew well that the price of her endless knitting, her
gathered eggs, wool, and swans' down, all went to her private account
in Lerwick Bank. For she had been saving money since she was a child
six years old, and neither father, mother, nor husband knew how much
she had saved. That was a thing Margaret kept absolutely to herself
and the little brown book which was in her locked drawer. There had
been times when Jan could have opened it had he desired; but he had
been too hurt and too proud to do so. If his wife could not
voluntarily trust him, he would not solicit her confidence. And it had
never struck Margaret that the little book was a hidden rock, on which
every thing might yet be wrecked. It was there, though the tide of
daily life flowed