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When Olaf Gueldmar and his daughter left the yacht that evening,
Errington accompanied them, in order to have the satisfaction of
escorting his beautiful betrothed as far as her own door. They were all
three very silent--the _bonde_ was pensive, Thelma shy, and Errington
himself was too happy for speech. Arriving at the farmhouse, they saw
Sigurd curled up under the porch, playing idly with the trailing
rose-branches, but, on hearing their footsteps, he looked up, uttered a
wild exclamation, and fled. Gueldmar tapped his own forehead
significantly.
"He grows worse and worse, the poor lad!" he said somewhat sorrowfully.
"And yet there is a strange mingling of foresight and wit with his wild
fancies. Wouldst thou believe it, Thelma, child," and here he turned to
his daughter and encircled her waist with his arm--"he seemed to know
how matters were with thee and Philip, when I was yet in the dark
concerning them!"
This was the first allusion her father had made to her engagement, and
her head drooped with a sort of sweet shame.


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