"Why?" asked Lorimer, with some eagerness.
"Because--" he stopped abruptly as a white figure suddenly appeared at the doorway, and a musical voice addressed them-"Why, what are you both doing here, away from everybody?" and Thelma smiled as she approached. "You are hermits, or you are lazy! People are going in to supper. Will you not come also?"
"Ma foi!" exclaimed Duprèz; "I had forgotten! I have promised your most charming mother, cher Lorimer, to take her in to this same supper. I must fly upon the wings of chivalry!"
And with a laugh, he hurried off, leaving Thelma and Lorimer alone together. She sank rather wearily into a chair near the organ, and looked at him.
"Play me something!" she said softly.
A strange thrill quivered through him as he met her eyes--the sweet, deep, earnest eyes of the woman he loved. For it was no use attempting to disguise it from himself--he loved her passionately, wildly, hopelessly; as he had loved her from the first.
Obedient to her wish, his fingers wandered over the organ-keys in a strain of solemn, weird, yet tender melancholy--the grand, rich notes pealed forth sobbingly--and she listened, her hands clasped idly in her lap. Presently he changed the theme to one of more heart-appealing passion--and a strange wild minor air, like the rushing of the wind across the mountains, began to make itself heard through the subdued rippling murmur of his improvised accompaniment. To his surprise and fear, she started up, pressing her hands against her ears.
"Not that--not that song, my friend!" she cried, almost imploringly. "Oh, it will break my heart! Oh, the Altenfjord!" And she gave way to a passion of weeping.
"Thelma! Thelma!" and poor Lorimer, rising from the organ, stood gazing at her in piteous dismay,--every nerve in his body wrung to anguish by the sound of her sobbing. A mad longing seized him to catch her in his arms,--to gather her and her sorrows, whatever they were, to his heart!--and he had much ado to restrain himself.
"Thelma," he presently said, in a gentle voice that trembled just a little, "Thelma, what is troubling you? You call me your brother--give me a brother's right to your confidence." He bent over her and took her hand. "I--I can't bear to see you cry like this! Tell me--what's the matter? Let me fetch Philip."
She looked up with wild wet eyes and quivering lips.
"Oh no--no!" she murmured, in a tone of entreaty and alarm. "Do not,--Philip must not know--I do wish him always to see me bright and cheerful--and--it is nothing! It is that I heard something which grieved me--"