Good Books

Overcoming
by degrees his first sensations of awe, he approached the sarcophagus
and examined it. It was solidly closed and mortared all round, so that
it might have been one compact coffin-shaped block of stone so far as
its outward appearance testified. Stooping more closely, however, to
look at the brilliant poppy-wreath, he started back with a slight
exclamation. Cut deeply in the hard granite he read for the second time
that odd name--
THELMA
It belonged to some one dead, then--not to the lovely living woman who
had so lately confronted him in the burning glow of the midnight sun? He
felt dismayed at his unthinking precipitation,--he had, in his fancy,
actually associated _her_, so full of radiant health and beauty, with
what was probably a mouldering corpse in that hermetically sealed
tenement of stone! This idea was unpleasant, and jarred upon his
feelings. Surely she, that golden-haired nymph of the Fjord, had nothing
to do with death! He had evidently found his way into some ancient tomb.


Pages:
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45