"Are they?" And Lorimer's blue eyes looked slightly melancholy. "Well, I dare say they are! Let's hope so at all events. There need be something before me,--there isn't much behind except wasted opportunities. Come on, Phil!"
They resumed their walk, and soon rejoined the others. The journey back to the Altenfjord was continued all day with but one or two interruptions for rest and refreshment. It was decided that on reaching home, old Güldmar should proceed a little in advance, in order to see his daughter alone first, and break to her the news of the tragic event that had occurred,--so that when, after a long and toilsome journey, they caught sight, at about eight in the evening, of the familiar farmhouse through the branches of the trees that surrounded and sheltered it, they all came to a halt.
The young men seated themselves on a pleasant knoll under some tall pines, there to wait a quarter of an hour or so, while the bonde went forward to prepare Thelma. On second thoughts, the old man asked Errington to accompany him,--a request to which he very readily acceded, and these two, leaving the others to follow at their leisure, went on their way rapidly. They arrived at, and entered the garden,--their footsteps made a crunching noise on the pebbly path,--but no welcoming face looked forth from any of the windows of the house. The entrance door stood wide open,--there was not a living soul to be seen but the kitten asleep in a corner of the porch, and the doves drowsing on the roof in the sunshine. The deserted air of the place was unmistakable, and Güldmar and Errington exchanged looks of wonder not unmixed with alarm.
"Thelma! Thelma!" called the bonde anxiously. There was no response. He entered the house and threw open the kitchen door. There was no fire,--and not the slightest sign of any of the usual preparations for supper.
"Britta!" shouted Güldmar. Still no answer. "By the gods!" he exclaimed, turning to the astonished Philip, "this is a strange thing! Where can the girls be? I have never known both of them to be absent from the house at the same time. Go down to the shore, my lad, and see if Thelma's boat is missing, while I search the garden."
Errington obeyed--hurrying off on his errand with a heart beating fast from sudden fear and anxiety. For he knew Thelma was not likely to have gone out of her own accord, at the very time she would have naturally expected her father and his friends back, and the absence of Britta too, was, to say the least of it, extraordinary. He reached the pier very speedily, and saw at a glance that the boat was gone. He hastened back to report this to Güldmar, who was making the whole place resound with his shouts of "Thelma!" and "Britta!" though he shouted altogether in vain.