uneasiness, constraint, and silence; then the chill fear thawed by
degrees, and the babble of talk flowed on again.

Yet half-an-hour later a very slight noise outside the door
sufficed to arrest every hand, every tongue. Every head was
raised, every eye fixed in one direction. "It is Christian; he is
late," said Sweyn.

No, no; this is a feeble shuffle, not a young man's tread. With
the sound of uncertain feet came the hard tap-tap of a stick
against the door, and the high-pitched voice of eld, "Open, open;
let me in!" Again Tyr flung up his head in a long doleful howl.

Before the echo of the tapping stick and the high voice had fairly
died away, Sweyn had sprung across to the door and flung it wide.
"No one again," he said in a steady voice, though his eyes looked
startled as he stared out. He saw the lonely expanse of snow, the
clouds swagging low, and between the two the line of dark
fir-trees bowing in the wind. He closed the door without a word of
comment, and re-crossed the room.

A score of blanched faces were turned to him as though he must be
solver of the enigma. He could not be unconscious of this mute
eye-questioning, and it disturbed his resolute air of composure.
He hesitated, glanced towards his mother, the house-mistress, then
back at the frightened folk, and gravely, before them all, made
the sign of the cross. There was a flutter of hands as the sign
was repeated by all, and the dead silence was stirred as by a huge
sigh, for the held breath of many was freed as though the sign
gave magic relief.