The Greenland sickness took mainly the same course, varying with the patient's personal quality. It began with a high fever, intense surface irritation; there ensued violent rheumatic pains, mental alienation, delirium, madness and death. It was characteristic, as has been said, that the sufferer turned from his kind, and turned markedly from whom he knew best.

Thorstan made his preparations carefully, and instructed Gudrid. As a wife who may be allowed a last word with her husband condemned to die, she took and gave her kisses. The time was too great for tears, the heart too faint for strong embraces. All she could do she did. She would obey him, she would not show herself; but she would be always at hand. She sat mostly at the head of his bed in the wall, hidden by a curtain, but ready to fetch and carry; to bring him food which Thorstan Black could give him; hot stones for his feet, hot rags to ease the pain in his limbs. He hardly opened his eyes, hardly ever groaned; but when the fever ran high he talked incessantly, in fierce and rapid whispers—and she heard told over again the week of rapture and dream under the snow in the empty ship. She suffered greatly under this affliction, both by the memories it evoked and the knowledge that such things could never be again. Her modesty might have been offended; but Thorstan Black was very kind to her. He used to go gently away when the sufferer began to speak, and would contrive his returns so as not to intrude on any privacy. Her heart was full of gratitude to the black-bearded giant, so huge and so gentle.

The fever seemed to eat Thorstan up; he became so thin that his cheeks sank away into hollows, and his bones stuck out so sharply that the skin cracked. Gudrid began to have horror of him. She thought that her lover was dead, and that this was some terrible mock-image of him sent there to haunt her. She seemed to become younger as he grew more like an old man. She was afraid to be left alone with him. Love had been frightened out of her, and even pity scarce dared to be there. She could not believe that this was the man who had so keenly loved and worshipped her body, and by his music had uplifted her soul. She had seen Thore die and had been compassionate to the end. She remembered how she had kissed him in the very article of death, and shuddered as she thought of kissing this living corpse. Her eyes besought Thorstan Black not to leave her, and he rarely did—for by this time her husband's weakness was such that, whatever he may have said in his fever, he could hardly be heard.

Towards the end—as Thorstan Black knew it must be—he persuaded Gudrid to lie down at night while he kept watch by the bed. And so she did. The poor girl was worn out, and went to sleep almost at once.

About midnight she was awakened. Thorstan Black stood by the bed with a taper. She gaped at him, cold to the bones.

"Come, my dear," he said. "He is asking for you." She said nothing. Then in the silence she heard her husband's voice, calling "Gudrid, Gudrid, Gudrid." She fell trembling, and knew not what she said. Thorstan Black put his cloak over her, and helped her out of bed. Her knees shook. "Is he dead? Is he dead? Oh, don't leave me. I'm frightened—he looks so strange—don't leave me, Thorstan."

"No, my dear, I won't leave you," he said, and put his arm round her, for she seemed about to fall. "Come," he said, "I'll take you, and stay by you."

She mastered her fear. "Yes," she said, "I must go. Oh, but you are so good to me."

"Don't go if you are afraid," said Thorstan. "He may be dead by now."

"No, no," she said, "not yet. I must hear what he says, for it may be he knows what the course of my life must be. If God will help me, I will go. But you will come too—you promised."

Thorstan thereupon lifted her up in his arms, and carried her into the room where Thorstan Ericsson lay. He went to the side of the bed and sat down, holding Gudrid on his knee. So they waited fearfully for the dead man to speak.

Thorstan Ericsson sat up in his bed; his eyes were so deep in his head that nothing showed of them but dark caves. His mouth was open, as if his jaw had dropped. But no sound came from him.

Then Thorstan Black said: "My namesake, you called to Gudrid, and I have her here beside you. What do you desire of her?"

The dead man spoke. "Gudrid, are you there?"

"Yes, Thorstan," she said quaking.

"I will tell you, my wife, that you need not grieve for me, nor fear me, for I shall never hurt you now—nor could I have the heart. I am come to a good place, and am at peace. Now you are to know that you will be married to an Icelander who will be kind to you, and give you what your heart desires. But your life will be longer than his, and your end will be pious—and that, too, you will desire before you reach it. And I pray you to take my body back to Ericsfrith and give me holy burial. Farewell, Gudrid, and have no fear for me."

Gudrid, cold as a stone, sat on Thorstan Black's knee as if she had been a child, and stared at the figure of her love. She could not say anything to him, she dared not touch him. His head sank forward, and he fell back in the bed and lay still. Thorstan Black touched him. He was stone cold.

The good giant thought now of Gudrid only, and talked to her gently for a long while, comforting her. He promised that he would never forsake her until he had brought her safely home to Ericsfrith. He would take Thorstan Ericsson to his own ship, and all the bodies of the crew who were dead should be put with him there until such time as they could sail. "And as for you, dear child," he said, "remember that you and that true man have had the best that life can give you—for than wedded love there is no more blessed thing. Think of me, my child, who lived happily with my good wife a twenty years, and think that you are better off maybe than I. For love such as yours is not a thing that can live—no, but it must needs change as it grows older. You change, and the world comes in between; and so it changes too. Now you have had love at the full—and it is ended at the full. You should be thankful for that. And be thankful too that he is at peace, and his fate rounded—and nothing for him now but folded hands and quiet sleep. Why, look at him now, Gudrid. Even now he smiles quietly, as who should say, I have done with it all. Look at him, and have no more fear of so gentle a thing."

Gudrid turned her haunted eyes towards the dead man. It was true. Thorstan smiled to himself wisely. And now she could see that his eyes were shut. She slipped off Thorstan Black's knee and knelt beside the bed. She looked at her dead lover, and without remembering her fear or thinking what she did, she put his hair off his forehead and tidied it. Then she leaned over him, looking tenderly down at him, and stooped and put her lips to his forehead.

Thorstan Black left her, and returned presently with candles and a cross which he had made. So they laid out Thorstan Ericsson, and Thorstan Black watched him all the rest of the night.