He led the way, and Olaf Güldmar followed him in silence.
It was raining fiercely, and the waves, green towers of strength, broke every now and then over the sides of the yacht with a hissing shower of salt white spray. The thunder rolled along the sky in angry reverberating echoes,--frequent flashes of lightning leaped out like swords drawn from dark scabbards,--yet towards the south the sky was clearing, and arrowy beams of pale gold fell from the hidden sun, with a soothing and soft lustre on the breast of the troubled water.
Güldmar looked about him, and heaved a deep sigh of refreshment. His eyes rested lovingly on the tumbling billows,--he bared his white head to the wind and rain.
"This is the life, the blood, the heart of a man!" he said, while a sort of fierce delight shone in his keen eyes. "To battle with the tempest,--to laugh at the wrath of waters,--to set one's face against the wild wind,--to sport with the elements as though they were children or serfs,--this is the joy of manhood! A joy," he added slowly, "that few so-called men of to-day can ever feel."
Errington smiled gravely. "Perhaps you are right, sir," he said; "but perhaps, at the same time, you forget that life has grown very bitter to all of us during the last hundred years or so. Maybe the world is getting old and used up, maybe the fault is in ourselves,--but it is certain that none of us nowadays are particularly happy, except at rare intervals when--"
At that moment, in a lull of the storm, Thelma's voice pealed upwards from the saloon. She was singing a French song, and the refrain rang out clearly-"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!"
Errington paused abruptly in his speech, and turning towards a little closed and covered place on deck which was half cabin, half smoking-room, and which he kept as his own private sanctum, he unlocked it, saying-"Will you come in here, sir? It's not very spacious, but I think it's just the place for a chat,--especially a private one."
Güldmar entered, but did not sit down,--Errington shut the door against the rain and beating spray and also remained standing. After a pause, during which the bonde seemed struggling with some inward emotion, he said resolutely-"Sir Philip, you are a young man, and I am an old one. I would not willingly offend you--for I like you--yes!" And the old man looked up frankly: "I like you enough to respect you--which is more than I can say to many men I have known! But I have a weight on my heart that must be lifted. You and my child have been much together for many days,--and I was an old fool not to have foreseen the influence your companionship might have upon her. I may be mistaken in the idea that has taken hold of me--some wild words let fall by the poor boy Sigurd this morning, when he entreated my pardon for his misconduct of yesterday, have perhaps misled my judgment,--but--by the gods! I cannot put it into suitable words! I--"