homestead. Trella was no more, and her end a
mystery. The poor old woman crawled out in a bright gleam to visit
a bed-ridden gossip living beyond the fir-grove. Under the trees
she was last seen, halting for her companion, sent back for a
forgotten present. Quick alarm sprang, calling every man to the
search. Her stick was found among the brushwood only a few paces
from the path, but no track or stain, for a gusty wind was sifting
the snow from the branches, and hid all sign of how she came by
her death.

So panic-stricken were the farm folk that none dared go singly on
the search. Known danger could be braced, but not this stealthy
Death that walked by day invisible, that cut off alike the child
in his play and the aged woman so near to her quiet grave.

"Rol she kissed; Trella she kissed!" So rang Christian's frantic
cry again and again, till Sweyn dragged him away and strove to
keep him apart, albeit in his agony of grief and remorse he
accused himself wildly as answerable for the tragedy, and gave
clear proof that the charge of madness was well founded, if
strange looks and desperate, incoherent words were evidence
enough.

But thenceforward all Sweyn's reasoning and mastery could not
uphold White Fell above suspicion. He was not called upon to
defend her from accusation when Christian had been brought to
silence again; but he well knew the significance of this fact,
that her name, formerly uttered freely and often, he never heard
now: it was huddled away into whispers that he could not catch.

The passing of time did not sweep away the superstitious fears
that Sweyn despised. He was angry and anxious; eager that White
Fell should return, and, merely by her bright gracious presence,
reinstate herself in favour; but doubtful if all his authority and
example could keep from her notice an altered aspect of welcome;
and he foresaw clearly that Christian would prove unmanageable,
and might be capable of some dangerous outbreak.

For a time the twins' variance was marked, on Sweyn's part by an
air of rigid indifference, on Christian's by heavy downcast
silence, and a nervous apprehensive observation of his brother.
Superadded to his remorse and foreboding, Sweyn's displeasure
weighed upon him intolerably, and the remembrance of their violent
rupture was a ceaseless misery. The elder brother, self-sufficient
and insensitive, could little know how deeply his unkindness
stabbed. A depth and force of affection such a