"And she was Thelma's mother?" said Errington with interest.
"She was Thelma's mother," returned the bonde, "and she was more beautiful than even Thelma is now. Her education had been almost entirely French, but, as a child, she had learnt that I generally spoke English, and as there happened to be an English nun in the Convent, she studied that language and mastered it for the love of me--yes!" he repeated with musing tenderness, "all for the love of me,--for she loved me, Sir Philip--ay! as passionately as I loved her, and that is saying a great deal! We lived a solitary happy life,--but we did not mix with our neighbors--our creeds were different,--our ways apart from theirs. We had some time of perfect happiness together. Three years passed before our child was born, and then"--the bonde paused awhile, and again continued,--"then my wife's health grew frail and uncertain. She liked to be in the fresh air, and was fond of wandering about the hills with her little one in her arms. One day--shall I ever forget it! when Thelma was about two and a half years old, I missed them both, and went out to search for them, fearing my wife had lost her way, and knowing that our child could not toddle far without fatigue. I found them"--the bonde shuddered-"but how? My wife had slipped and fallen through a chasm in the rocks,--high enough, indeed, to have killed her,--she was alive, but injured for life. She lay there white and motionless--little Thelma meanwhile sat smilingly on the edge of the rock, assuring me that her mother had gone to sleep 'down there.' Well!" and Güldmar brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, "to make a long story short, I carried my darling home in my arms a wreck--she lingered for ten years of patient suffering, ten long years! She could only move about on crutches,--the beauty of her figure was gone--but the beauty of her face grew more perfect every day! Never again was she seen on the hills,--and so to the silly folks of Bosekop she seemed to have disappeared. Indeed, I kept her very existence a secret,--I could not endure that others should hear of the destruction of all that marvellous grace and queenly loveliness! She lived long enough to see her daughter blossom into girlhood,--then,--she died. I could not bear to have her laid in the damp, wormy earth--you know in our creed earth-burial is not practiced,--so I laid her tenderly away in a king's tomb of antiquity,--a tomb known only to myself and one who assisted me to lay her in her last resting-place. There she sleeps right royally,--and now is your mind relieved, my lad? For the reports of the Bosekop folk must certainly have awakened some suspicions in your mind?"