Sigurd stared up at him in vacant surprise, but nodded feebly.
"Well, mind you remember it! The spirits tell lies, my boy, if they say that he is my enemy. I would give my life to save his!"
He spoke quietly, and rose from his seat on the moss as he finished his words, and his face had an expression that was both noble and resolute.
Sigurd still gazed upon him. "And you,--you do not love Thelma?" he murmured.
Lorimer started, but controlled himself instantly. His frank English eyes met the feverishly brilliant ones fixed so appealingly upon him.
"Certainly not!" he said calmly, with a serene smile. "What makes you think of such a thing? Quite wrong, Sigurd,--the spirits have made a mistake again! Come along,--let us join the others."
But Sigurd would not accompany him. He sprang away like a frightened animal, in haste, and abruptly plunging into the depths of a wood that bordered on Olaf Güldmar's grounds, was soon lost to sight. Lorimer looked after him in a little perplexity.
"I wonder if he ever gets dangerous?" he thought. "A fellow with such queer notions might do some serious harm without meaning it. I'll keep an eye on him!"
And once or twice during that same evening, he felt inclined to speak to Errington on the subject, but no suitable opportunity presented itself--and after a while, with his habitual indolence, he partly forgot the circumstance.
On the following Sunday afternoon Thelma sat alone under the wide blossom-covered porch, reading. Her father and Sigurd,--accompanied by Errington and his friends,--had all gone for a mountain ramble, promising to return for supper, a substantial meal which Britta was already busy preparing. The afternoon was very warm,--one of those long, lazy stretches of heat and brilliancy in which Nature seems to have lain down to rest like a child tired of play, sleeping in the sunshine with drooping flowers in her hands. The very ripple of the stream seemed hushed, and Thelma, though her eyes were bent seriously on the book she held, sighed once or twice heavily as though she were tired. There was a change in the girl,--an undefinable something seemed to have passed over her and toned down the redundant brightness of her beauty. She was paler,--and there were darker shadows than usual under the splendor of her eyes. Her very attitude, as she leaned her head against the dark, fantastic carving of the porch, had a touch of listlessness and indifference in it; her sweetly arched lips drooped with a plaintive little line at the corners, and her whole air was indicative of fatigue, mingled with sadness. She looked up now and then from the printed page, and her gaze wandered over the stretch of the scented, flower-filled garden, to the little silvery glimmer of the Fjord from whence arose, like delicate black streaks against the sky, the slender masts of the Eulalie,--and then she would resume her reading with a slight movement of impatience.