The next morning, as a natural consequence, he began the day with a dull, miserable headache; at breakfast he hardly spoke, and he set off for business looking so ill that Sigrid wondered whether he could possibly get through his work. It was certainly strange, she could not help thinking, that fate seemed so utterly against him, and that when at last his life was beginning to look brighter, he should again be the victim of another’s fault. And then, with a sort of comfort, there flashed into her mind an idea which almost reconciled her to his lot. What if these obstacles so hard to be surmounted, these difficulties that hemmed him in so persistently, were after all only the equivalent to the physical dangers and difficulties of the life of the old Vikings? Did it not, in truth, need greater courage and endurance for the nineteenth-century Frithiof to curb all his natural desires and instincts and toil at uncongenial work in order to pay off his father’s debts, than for the Frithiof of olden times to face all the dangers of the sea, and of foes spiritual and temporal who beset him when he went to win back the lost tribute money? It was, after all, a keen pleasure to the old Frithiof to fight with winds and waves; but it was a hard struggle to the modern Frithiof to stand behind a counter day after day. And then again, was it not less bitter for the Frithiof of the Saga to be suspected of sacrilege, than for Frithiof Falck to be suspected of the most petty and contemptible act of dishonesty? She was right. Anything, however painful and difficult, would have been gladly encountered by poor Frithiof if it could have spared him that miserable return to his old place in Mr. Boniface’s shop. And that day’s prosaic work needed greater moral courage than any previous day of his life. About half-past nine there arrived a telegram which did not mend matters. Mr. Boniface was seriously unwell, would not be in town that day, and could not be at St. James’s Hall that evening for the concert. Mr. Horner would take his place. Frithiof’s heart sank at this news; and when presently the fussy, bumptious, little man entered the shop the climax of his misery was reached. Mr. Horner read the telegram with a disturbed air. “Dear! dear! seriously ill, I’m afraid, or he would at least make an effort to come to-night. But after all the annoyance of yesterday I am not surprised—no, not at all. Such a thing has never happened in his business before, ay, Mr. Foster?” “Oh, no, sir,” said the foreman in a low voice, sorry in his heart for the young Norwegian, who could not avoid hearing every word.