myself worthy! But I must try to grow very
conceited, and assure myself that I am very valuable! so that then I
shall understand everything better, and be wiser."

Philip laughed. "Talking of letters," he said suddenly, "here's one I
wrote to you from Hull--it only got here today. Where it has been
delayed is a mystery. You needn't read it--you know everything in it
already. Then there's a letter on the shelf up there addressed in your
writing--it seems never to have been opened."

He reached it down, and gave it to her. As she took it, her face grew
very sad.

"It is the one I wrote to my father before I left London," she said. And
her eyes filled with tears. "It came too late!"

"Thelma," said Sir Philip then, very gently and gravely, "would you
like--can you bear--to read your father's last words to you? He wrote to
you on his death-bed, and gave the letter to Valdemar--"

"Oh, let me see it!" she murmured half-sobbingly. "Father,--dear father!
I knew he would not leave me without a word!"

Sir Philip reverently opened the folded paper which Svensen had
committed to his care that morning, and together they read the _bonde's_
farewell. It ran as follows:--

"THELMA, MY BELOVED,"

"The summons I have waited for has come at last, and the doors of
Valhalla are set open to receive my soul. Wonder not that I
depart with joy! Old as I am, I long for youth--the everlasting
youth of which the strength and savor fails not. I have lived
long enough to know the sameness of this world--though there is
much therein to please the heart and eye of a man--but with that
roving restlessness that was born within me, I desire to sail new
seas and gaze on new lands, where a perpetual light shines that
knows no fading. Grieve not for me--thou wilt remember that,
unlike a Christian, I see in death the chiefest glory of
life--and thou must not regret that I am eager to drain this cup
of world-oblivion offered by the gods. I leave thee,--not
sorrowfully,--for thou art in shelter and safety--the strong
protection of thy husband's love defends thee and the safeguard
of thine own innocence. My blessing upon him and thee! Serve him,
Thelma mine, with full devotion and obedience--even as I have
taught thee,--thus drawing from thy womanlife its best measure of
sweetness,--keep the bright shield of thy truth untarnished--and
live so that at the hour of thine own death-ecstasy tho