They laughed,--and Thelma blushed as Errington's dreamy eyes rested on her with a look, which, though he was unconscious of it, spoke passionate admiration. The day passed too quickly with them all,--and now, as they sat at dinner in the richly ornamented saloon, there was not one among them who could contemplate without reluctance the approaching break-up of so pleasant a party. Dessert was served, and as Thelma toyed with the fruit on her plate and sipped her glass of champagne, her face grew serious and absorbed,--even sad,--and she scarcely seemed to hear the merry chatter of tongues around her, till Errington's voice asking a question of her father roused her into swift attention.
"Do you know any one of the name of Sigurd?" he was saying, "a poor fellow whose wits are in heaven let us hope,--for they certainly are not on earth."
Olaf Güldmar's fine face softened with pity, and he replied-"Sigurd? Have you met him then? Ah, poor boy, his is a sad fate! He has wit enough, but it works wrongly; the brain is there, but 'tis twisted. Yes, we know Sigurd well enough--his home is with us in default of a better. Ay, ay! we snatched him from death--perhaps unwisely,--yet he has a good heart, and finds pleasure in his life."
"He is a kind of poet in his own way," went on Errington, watching Thelma as she listened intently to their conversation. "Do you know he actually visited me on board here last night and begged me to go away from the Altenfjord altogether? He seemed afraid of me, as if he thought I meant to do him some harm."
"How strange!" murmured Thelma. "Sigurd never speaks to visitors,--he is too shy. I cannot understand his motive!"
"Ah, my dear!" sighed her father. "Has he any motive at all? . . . and does he ever understand himself? His fancies change with every shifting breeze! I will tell you," he continued, addressing himself to Errington, "how he came to be, as it were, a bit of our home. Just before Thelma was born, I was walking with my wife one day on the shore, when we both caught sight of something bumping against our little pier, like a large box or basket. I managed to get hold of it with a boat-hook and drag it in; it was a sort of creel such as is used to pack fish in, and in it was the naked body of a half-drowned child. It was an ugly little creature--a newly born infant deformity--and on its chest there was a horrible scar in the shape of a cross, as though it had been gashed deeply with a pen-knife. I thought it was dead, and was for throwing it back into the Fjord, but my wife,--a tender-hearted angel--took the poor wretched little wet body in her arms, and found that it breathed. She warmed it, dried it, and wrapped it in her shawl,--and after awhile the tiny monster opened its eyes and stared at her. Well! . . . somehow, neither of us could forget the look it gave us,--such a solemn, warning, pitiful, appealing sort of expression! There was no resisting it,--so we took the foundling and did the best we could for him. We gave him the name of Sigurd,--and when Thelma was born, the two babies used to play together all day, and we never noticed anything wrong with the boy, except his natural deformity, till he was about ten or twelve years old. Then we saw to our sorrow that the gods had chosen to play havoc with his wits. However, we humored him tenderly, and he was always manageable. Poor Sigurd! He adored my wife; I have known him listen for hours to catch the sound of her footstep; he would actually deck the threshold with flowers in the morning that she might tread on them as she passed by." The old bonds sighed and rubbed his hand across his eyes with a gesture half of pain, half of impatience--"And now he is Thelma's slave,--a regular servant to her. She can manage him best of us all,--he is as docile as a lamb, and will do anything she tells him."