"It does not seem to me a kindness at all," returned Friedhof with frank bluntness. "I would be loth to sail the seas myself in such weather. And I thought you were so grandly married, Fröken Güldmar,--though I forget your wedded name,--how comes it that your husband is not with you?"
"He is very busy in London," answered Thelma. "He knows where I am going. Do not be at all anxious, Friedhof,--I shall make the journey very well and I am not afraid of storm or wild seas."
Friedhof still looked dubious, but finally yielded to her entreaties and agreed to arrange her passage for her in the morning.
She stayed at his hotel that night, and with the very early dawn accompanied him on board the ship he had mentioned. It was a small, awkwardly built craft, with an ugly crooked black funnel out of which the steam was hissing and spitting with quite an unnecessary degree of violence--the decks were wet and dirty, and the whole vessel was pervaded with a sickening smell of whale-oil. The captain, a gruff red-faced fellow, looked rather surlily at his unexpected passenger--but was soon mollified by her gentle manner, and the readiness with which she paid the money he demanded for taking her.
"You won't be very warm," he said, eyeing her from head to foot--"but I can lend you a rug to sleep in."
Thelma smiled and thanked him. He called to his wife, a thin, overworked-looking creature, who put up her head from a window in the cabin, at his summons.
"Here's a lady going with us," he announced. "Look after her, will you?" The woman nodded. Then, once more addressing himself to Thelma, he said, "We shall have nasty weather and a wicked sea!"
"I do not mind!" she answered quietly, and turning to Friedhof who had come to see her off, she shook hands with him warmly and thanked him for the trouble he had taken in her behalf. The good landlord bade her farewell somewhat reluctantly,--he had a presentiment that there was something wrong with the beautiful, golden-haired daughter of the Jarl--and that perhaps he ought to have prevented her making this uncomfortable and possibly perilous voyage. But it was too late now,--and at a little before seven o'clock, the vessel,--which rejoiced in the name of the Black Polly,--left the harbor, and steamed fussily down the Humber in the teeth of a sudden storm of sleet and snow.