Breaking loose from Valdemar's grasp, she
rushed a few steps forward with arms outstretched on the bitter, snowy
air.
"Father! father!" she cried aloud and sobbingly. "Wait for me!--it is I
Thelma!--I am coming--Father!"
The white world around her grew black--and, shuddering like a shot bird,
she fell senseless.
Instantly Valdemar raised her from the ground, and holding her tenderly
and reverently in his strong arms, carried her, as though she were a
child, into the house . . . clouds darkened--the snow-storm
thickened--the mountain-peaks, stern giants, frowned through their
sleety veils at the arctic desolation of the land below them,--and over
the charred and sunken corpse of the departed servant of Odin, sounded
the solemn De Profundis of the sea.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"The body is the storm;
The soul the star beyond it, in the deep
Of Nature's calm. And, yonder, on the steep,
The Sun of Faith, quiescent, round, and warm!"
Late on that same night, the pious Ulrika was engaged in prayer.
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