Lovisa Elsland seemed stupefied with surprise. "Is this the truth?" she asked at last, slowly and incredulously.

"The truth, the truth!" cried Ulrika pa.s.sionately. "It is always the truth that comes to light! He is my child, I tell you! . . . I gave him that scar!" She paused, shuddering, and continued in a lower tone, "I tried to kill him with a knife, but when the blood flowed, it sickened me, and I could not! He was an infant abortion--the evil fruit of an evil deed--and I threw him out to the waves,--as I told you, long ago.

You have had good use of my confession, Lovisa Elsland; you have held me in your power by means of my secret, but now--"

The old woman interrupted her with a low laugh of contempt and malice.

"As the parents are, so are the children!" she said scornfully. "Your lover must have been a fine man, Ulrika, if the son is like his father!"

Ulrika glared at her vengefully, then drew herself up with an air of defiance.

"I care nothing for your taunts, Lovisa Elsland!" she said. "You can do me no harm! All is over between us! I will help in no mischief against the Guldmars. Whatever their faults, they saved--my child!"

"Is that so great a blessing?" asked Lovisa ironically.

"It makes your threats useless," answered Ulrika. "You cannot call me _murderess_ again!"

"Coward and fool!" shrieked Lovisa. "Was it _your_ intent that the child should live? Were you not glad to think it dead? And cannot I spread the story of your infamy through all the villages where you are known? Is not the wretched boy himself a living witness of the attempt you made to kill him? Does not that scar speak against you? Would not Olaf Guldmar relate the story of the child's rescue to any one that asked him? Would you like all Bosekop to know of your intrigue with an escaped criminal, who was afterwards caught and hung! The virtuous Ulrika--the zealous servant of the Gospel--the pious, praying Ulrika!" and the old woman trembled with rage and excitement. "Out of my power? Never, never! As long as there is breath in my body I will hold you down! _Not_ a murderess, you say--?"

"No," said Ulrika very calmly, with a keen look, "I am _not_--but you _are_!"

CHAPTER XVI.

"Il n'y a personne qui ait eu autant a souffrir a votre sujet que moi depuis ma naissance! aussi je vous supplie a deux genoux et au nom de Dien, d'avoir pitie de moi!"--_Old Breton Ballad_.

In a few more days Thelma's engagement to Sir Philip Bruce-Errington was the talk of the neighborhood. The news spread gradually, having been, in the first place, started by Britta, whose triumph in her mistress's happiness was charming to witness. It reached the astonished and reluctant ears of the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, whose rage was so great that it destroyed his appet.i.te for twenty-four hours. But the general impression in the neighborhood, where superst.i.tion maintained so strong a hold on the primitive and prejudiced minds of the people, was that the reckless young Englishman would rue the day on which he wedded "the white witch of the Altenfjord."

Guldmar was regarded with more suspicion than ever, as having used some secret and diabolical influence to promote the match; and the whole party were, as it seemed, tabooed, and looked upon as given up to the most unholy practices.

Needless to say, the opinions of the villagers had no effect whatever on the good spirits of those who were thus unfavorably criticised, and it would have been difficult to find a merrier group than that a.s.sembled one fine morning in front of Guldmar's house, all equipped from top to toe for some evidently unusually lengthy and arduous mountain excursion.

Each man carried a long, stout stick, portable flask, knapsack, and rug--the latter two articles strapped together and slung across the shoulder--and they all presented an eminently picturesque appearance, particularly Sigurd, who stood at a little distance from the others, leaning on his tall staff and gazing at Thelma with an air of peculiar pensiveness and abstraction.

She was at that moment busied in adjusting Errington's knapsack more comfortably, her fair, laughing face turned up to his, and her bright eyes alight with love and tender solicitude.

"I've a good mind not to go at all," he whispered in her ear. "I'll come back and stay with you all day."

"You foolish boy!" she answered merrily. "You would miss seeing the grand fall--all for what? To sit with me and watch me spinning, and you would grow so very sleepy! Now, if I were a man, I would go with you."

"I'm very glad you're not a man!" said Errington, pressing the little hand that had just buckled his shoulder-strap. "Though I wish you _were_ going with us. But I say, Thelma, darling, won't you be lonely?"

She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am never lonely _now_." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy, upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew her hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with a mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be missed! You wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the time you are away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"

"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Guldmar, at this juncture "keep the gates bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou and Britta must pa.s.s the night alone here,--we cannot be at home till late in the evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden, and deny thyself to all comers. Dost thou hear?"

"Yes, father," she responded meekly.

"And let Britta keep good guard that her crazy hag of a grandam come not hither to disturb or fright thee with her croaking,--for thou hast not even Sigurd to protect thee."

"Not even Sigurd!" said that personage, with a meditative smile. "No, mistress; not even poor Sigurd!"

"One of us might remain behind," suggested Lorimer, with a side-look at his friend.

"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Thelma anxiously. "It would vex me so much!

Britta and I have often been alone before. We are quite safe, are we not, father?"

"Safe enough!" said the old man, with a laugh. "I know of no one save Lovisa Elsland who has the courage to face thee, child! Still, pretty witch as thou art, 'twill not harm thee to put the iron bar across the house door, and to lock fast the outer gate when we have gone. This done, I have no fear of thy safety. Now," and he kissed his daughter heartily, "now lads, 'tis time we were on the march! Sigurd, my boy, lead on!"

"Wait!" cried Sigurd, springing to Thelma's side. "I must say good-bye!"

And he caught the girl's hand and kissed it,--then plucking a rose, he left it between her fingers. "That will remind you of Sigurd, mistress!

Think of him once to-day!--once again when the midnight glory shines.

Good-bye, mistress! that is what the dead say, . . . Good-bye!"

And with a pa.s.sionate gesture of farewell, he ran and placed himself at the head of the little group that waited for him, saying exultingly--

"Now follow me! Sigurd knows the way! Sigurd is the friend of all the wild waterfall! Up the hills,--across the leaping stream,--through the sparkling foam!" And he began chanting to himself a sort of wild mountain song.

Macfarlane looked at him dubiously. "Are ye sure?" he said to Guldmar.

"Are ye sure that wee chap kens whaur he's gaun? He'll no lead us into a ditch an' leave us there, mistakin' it for the Fall?"

Guldmar laughed heartily. "Never fear! Sigurd's the best guide you can have, in spite of his fancies. He knows all the safest and surest paths; and Njedegorze is no easy place to reach, I can tell you!"

"_Pardon!_ How is it called?" asked Duprez eagerly.

"Njedegorze."

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "I give it up!" he said smilingly.

"Mademoiselle Guldmar, if anything happens to me at this cascade with the name unp.r.o.nounceable, you will again be my doctor, will you not?"

Thelma laughed as she shook hands with him. "Nothing will happen," she rejoined; "unless, indeed, you catch cold by sleeping in a hut all night. Father, you must see that they do not catch cold!"

The _bonde_ nodded, and motioned the party forward, Sigurd leading the way,--Errington, however, lingered behind on pretense of having forgotten something, and, drawing his betrothed in his arms, kissed her fondly.

"Take care of yourself, darling!" he murmured,--and then hurrying away he rejoined his friends, who had discreetly refrained from looking back, and therefore had not seen the lovers embrace.

Sigurd, however, had seen it, and the sight apparently gave fresh impetus to his movements, for he sprang up the adjacent hill with so much velocity that those who followed had some difficulty to keep up with him,--and it was not till they were out of sight of the farmhouse that he resumed anything like a reasonable pace.

As soon as they had disappeared, Thelma turned into the house and seated herself at her spinning-wheel. Britta soon entered the room, carrying the same graceful implement of industry, and the two maidens sat together for some time in a silence unbroken, save by the low melodious whirring of the two wheels, and the mellow complaints of the strutting doves on the window-sill.

"Froken Thelma!" said Britta at last, timidly.

"Yes, Britta?" And her mistress looked up inquiringly.

"Of what use is it for you to spin now?" queried the little handmaid.

"You will be a great lady, and great ladies do not work at all!"

Thelma's wheel revolved more and more slowly, till at last it stopped altogether.