"Would I care if you suffered?" she whispered. "Oh, my love! . . . my love!"
Then, as if afraid lest the very winds should have heard her half-breathed exclamation, she shut her window in haste, and a hot blush crimsoned her cheeks.
Undressing quickly, she slipped into her little white bed and, closing her eyes, fancied she slept, though her sleep was but a waking dream of love in which all bright hopes reached their utmost fulfillment, and yet were in some strange way crossed with shadows which she had no power to disperse. And later on, when old Güldmar slumbered soundly, and the golden mid-night sunshine lit up every nook and gable of the farmhouse with its lustrous glory, making Thelma's closed lattice sparkle like a carven jewel,--a desolate figure lay prone on the grass beneath her window, with meagre pale face, and wide-open wild blue eyes upturned to the fiery brilliancy of the heavens. Sigurd had come home;--Sigurd was repentant, sorrowful, ashamed,--and broken-hearted.