Errington smiled and nodded in the affirmative.
"You do?" exclaimed the old man, somewhat surprised. "You know they say I killed my wife--my wife! the creature before whom my soul knelt in worship night and day--whose bright head was the sunlight of life! Let me tell you of her, Sir Philip--'tis a simple story. She was the child of my dearest friend, and many years younger than myself. This friend of mine, Erik Erlandsen, was the captain of a stout Norwegian barque, running constantly between these wild waters and the coast of France. He fell in love with, and married a blue-eyed beauty from the Sogne Fjord, he carried her secretly away from her parents, who would not consent to the marriage. She was a timid creature, in spite of her queenly ways, and, for fear of her parents, she would never land again on the shores of Norway. She grew to love France,--and Erik often left her there in some safe shelter when he was bound on some extra long and stormy passage. She took to the Catholic creed, too, in France, and learned to speak the French tongue, so Erik said, as though it were her own. At the time of the expected birth of her child, her husband had taken her far inland to Arles, and there business compelled him to leave her for some days. When he returned she was dead!--laid out for burial, with flowers and tapers round her. He fell prone on her body insensible,--and not for many hours did the people of the place dare to tell him that he was the father of a living child--a girl, with the great blue eyes and white skin of her mother. He would scarce look at it--but at last, when roused a bit, he carried the little thing in his arms to the great Convent at Arles, and, giving the nuns money, he bade them take it and bring it up as they would, only giving it the name of Thelma. Then poor Erlandsen came home--he sought me out:--he said, 'Olaf, I feel that I am going on my last voyage. Promise you will see to my child--guard her, if you can, from an evil fate! For me there is no future!' I promised, and strove to cheer him--but he spoke truly--his ship went down in a storm on the Bay of Biscay, and all on board were lost. Then it was that I commenced my journeyings to and fro, to see the little maiden that was growing up in the Convent at Arles. I watched her for sixteen years--and when she reached her seventeenth birthday, I married her and brought her to Norway."