Thelma. Marie Corelli
he glanced at the drooping rose he wore, which Thelma herself had given him, and as he went to his sleeping cabin, he carefully detached it from his button-hole, and taking down a book,—one which he greatly prized, because it had belonged to his mother,—he prepared to press the flower within its leaves. It was the "Imitation of Christ," bound quaintly and fastened with silver clasps, and as he was about to lay his fragrant trophy on the first page that opened naturally of itself, he glanced at the words that there presented themselves to his eyes.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or in earth!" And with a smile and a warmer flush of color than usual on his handsome face, he touched the rose lightly yet tenderly with his lips and shut it reverently within its sacred resting-place.
CHAPTER IX.
"Our manners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully incline to the worse; of our customs there are many barbarous and monstrous."
MONTAIGNE.
The next day was very warm and bright, and that pious Lutheran divine, the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, was seriously encumbered by his own surplus flesh material as he wearily rowed himself across the Fjord towards Olaf Güldmar's private pier. As the perspiration bedewed his brow, he felt that Heaven had dealt with him somewhat too liberally in the way of fat—he was provided too amply with it ever to excel as an oarsman. The sun was burning hot, the water was smooth as oil, and very weighty—it seemed to resist every stroke of his clumsily wielded blades. Altogether it was hard, uncongenial work,—and, being rendered somewhat flabby and nerveless by his previous evening's carouse with Macfarlane's whisky, Mr. Dyceworthy was in a plaintive and injured frame of mind, he was bound on a mission—a holy and edifying errand, which would have elevated any minister of his particular sect. He had found a crucifix with the name of Thelma engraved thereon,—he was now about to return it to the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he purposed denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth on the Seven Hills," and threatening all those who dared to hold it sacred, as doomed to eternal torture, "where the worm dieth not." He had thought over all he meant to say; he had planned several eloquent and rounded sentences, some of which he murmured placidly to himself as he propelled his slow boat along.
"Yea!" he observed in a mild sotto-voce—"ye shall be cut off root and branch! Ye shall be scorched even as stubble,—and utterly destroyed." Here he paused and mopped his streaming forehead with his clean perfumed handkerchief. "Yea!" he resumed peacefully, "the worshippers of idolatrous images are accursèd; they shall have ashes for food and gall for drink! Let them turn and repent themselves, lest the wrath of God consume them as straw whirled on the wind. Repent! . . . or ye shall be cast into everlasting fire. Beauty shall avail not, learning shall avail not, meekness shall avail not; for the fire of hell is a searching, endless, destroying—" here Mr. Dyceworthy, by plunging one oar with too much determination into the watery depths, caught a crab, as the saying is, and fell violently backward in a somewhat undignified posture. Recovering himself slowly, he looked about him in a bewildered way, and for the first time noticed the vacant, solitary appearance of the Fjord. Some object was missing; he realized what it was immediately—the English yacht Eulalie was gone from her point of anchorage.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Dyceworthy, half aloud, "what a very sudden departure! I wonder, now, if those young men have gone for good, or whether they are coming back again? Pleasant fellows, very pleasant! flippant, perhaps, but pleasant."
And he smiled benevolently. He had no remembrance of what had occurred, after he had emptied young Macfarlane's flask of Glenlivet; he had no idea that he had been almost carried from his garden into his parlor, and there flung on the sofa and left to sleep off the effects of his strong tipple; least of all did he dream that he had betrayed any of his intentions towards Thelma Güldmar, or given his religious opinions with such free and undisguised candor. Blissfully ignorant on these points, he resumed his refractory oars, and after nearly an hour of laborious effort, succeeded at last in reaching his destination. Arrived at the little pier, he fastened up his boat, and with the lofty air of a thoroughly moral man, he walked deliberately up to the door of the bonde's house. Contrary to custom, it was closed, and the place seemed strangely silent and deserted. The afternoon heat was so great that the song-birds were hushed, and in hiding under the cool green leaves,—the clambering roses round the porch hung down their bright heads for sheer faintness,—and the only sounds to be heard were the subdued coo-cooing of the doves on the roof and the soft trickling rush of a little mountain stream that flowed through the grounds. Some what surprised, though not abashed, at the evident "not-at-home" look of the farm-house, Mr. Dyceworthy rapped loudly at the rough oaken door with his knuckles, there being no such modern convenience as a bell or a knocker. He waited sometime before he was answered, repeating his summons violently at frequent intervals, and swearing irreligiously under his breath as he did so. But at last the door was flung sharply open, and the tangle-haired, rosy-cheeked Britta confronted him with an aspect which was by no means encouraging or polite. Her round blue eyes sparkled saucily, and she placed her bare, plump, red arms, wet with recent soapsuds, akimbo on her sturdy little hips, with an air that was decidedly impertinent.
"Well, what do you want?" she demanded with rude abruptness.
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her in speechless dignity. Vouchsafing no reply, he attempted to pass her and enter the house. But Britta settled her arms more defiantly than ever, and her voice had a sharper ring as she said—
"It's no use your coming in! There's no one here but me. The master has gone out for the day."
"Young woman," returned Mr. Dyceworthy with polite severity, "I regret to see that your manners stand in sore need of improvement. Your master's absence is of no importance to me. It is with the Fröken Thelma I desire to speak."
Britta laughed and tossed her rough brown curls back from her forehead. Mischievous dimples came and went at the corners of her mouth—indications of suppressed fun.
"The Fröken is out too," she said demurely. "It's time she had a little amusement; and the gentlemen treat her as if she were a queen!"
Mr. Dyceworthy started, and his red visage became a trifle paler.
"Gentlemen? What gentlemen?" he demanded with some impatience.
Britta's inward delight evidently increased.
"The gentlemen from the yacht, of course," she said. "What other gentlemen are there?" This with a contemptuous up-and-down sort of look at the Lutheran minister's portly form. "Sir Philip Errington was here with his friend yesterday evening and stayed a long time—and today a fine boat with four oars came to fetch the master and Fröken Thelma, and they are all gone for a sail to the Kaa Fjord or some other place near here—I cannot remember the name. And I am SO glad!" went on Britta, clasping her plump hands in ecstasy. "They are the grandest, handsomest Herren I have ever seen, and one can tell they think wonders of the Fröken—nothing is too good for her!"
Mr. Dyceworthy's face was the picture of dismay. This was a new turn to the course of events, and one, more over, that he had never once contemplated. Britta watched him amusedly.
"Will you leave any message for them when they return?" she asked.
"No," said the minister dubiously. "Yet, stay; yes! I will! Tell the Fröken that I have found something which belongs to her, and that when she wishes to have it, I will myself bring it."
Britta looked cross. "If it is hers you have no business to keep it," she said brusquely. "Why not leave it,—whatever it is,—with me?"
Mr. Dyceworthy regarded her with a bland and lofty air.
"I trust no concerns of mine or hers to the keeping of a paid domestic," he said. "A domestic, moreover, who deserts the ways of her own people,—who hath dealings with the dwellers in darkness,—who even bringeth herself to forget much of her own native tongue, and who devoteth