"Very good, sir," and the pilot, tacitly avoiding any further converse with his employer respecting the mysterious Thelma and her equally mysterious father, turned to examine the wheel and compass as though something there needed his earnest attention. Errington and Lorimer strolled up and down the polished white deck arm-in-arm, talking in low tones.
"You didn't ask him about the coffin and the dwarf," said Lorimer.
"No; because I believe he knows nothing of either, and it would be news to him which I'm not bound to give. If I can manage to see the girl again the mystery of the cave may explain itself."
"Well, what are you going to do?"
Errington looked meditative. "Nothing at present We'll go fishing with the others. But, I tell you what, if you're up to it, we'll leave Duprèz and Macfarlane at the minister's house this evening and tell them to wait for us there,--once they all begin to chatter they never know how time goes. Meanwhile you and I will take the boat and row over in search of this farmer's abode. I believe there's a short cut to it by water; at any rate I know the way she went."
"'I know the way she went home with her maiden posy!'" quoted Lorimer, with a laugh. "You are hit Phil, 'a very palpable hit'! Who would have thought it! Clara Winsleigh needn't poison her husband after all in-order to marry you, for nothing but a sun-empress will suit you now."
"Don't be a fool, George," said Errington, half vexedly, as the hot color mounted to his face in spite of himself. "It is all idle curiosity, nothing else. After what Svensen told us, I'm quite as anxious to see this gruff old bonde as his daughter."
Lorimer held up a reproachful finger. "Now, Phil, don't stoop to duplicity--not with me, at any rate. Why disguise your feelings? Why, as the tragedians say, endeavor to crush the noblest and best emotions that ever warm the boo-zum of man? Chivalrous sentiment and admiration for beauty,--chivalrous desire to pursue it and catch it and call it your own,--I understand it all, my dear boy! But my prophetic soul tells me you will have to strangle the excellent Olaf Güldmar--heavens! what a name!--before you will be allowed to make love to his fair chee-ild. Then don't forget the madman with the torch,--he may turn up in the most unexpected fashion and give you no end of trouble. But, by Jove, it is a romantic affair, positively quite stagey! Something will come of it, serious or comic. I wonder which?"