irely French, but, as a child, she had learnt that I generally spoke
English, and as there happened to be an English nun in the Convent, she
studied that language and mastered it for the love of me--yes!" he
repeated with musing tenderness, "all for the love of me,--for she loved
me, Sir Philip--ay! as passionately as I loved her, and that is saying a
great deal! We lived a solitary happy life,--but we did not mix with our
neighbors--our creeds were different,--our ways apart from theirs. We
had some time of perfect happiness together. Three years passed before
our child was born, and then"--the _bonde_ paused awhile, and again
continued,--"then my wife's health grew frail and uncertain. She liked
to be in the fresh air, and was fond of wandering about the hills with
her little one in her arms. One day--shall I ever forget it! when Thelma
was about two and a half years old, I missed them both, and went out to
search for them, fearing my wife had lost her way, and knowing that our
child could not toddle far without fatigue. I found them"--the _bonde_
shuddered-"but how? My wife had slipped and fallen through a chasm in
the rocks,--high enough, indeed, to have killed her,--she was alive, but
injured for life. She lay there white and motionless--little Thelma
meanwhile sat smilingly on the edge of the rock, assuring me that her
mother had gone to sleep '_down there_.' Well!" and Gueldmar brushed the
back of his hand across his eyes, "to make a long story short, I carried
my darling home in my arms a wreck--she lingered for ten years of
patient suffering, ten long years! She could only move about on
crutches,--the beauty of her figure was gone--but the beauty of her face
grew more perfect every day! Never again was she seen on the hills,--and
so to the silly folks of Bosekop she seemed to have disappeared. Indeed,
I kept her very existence a secret,--I could not endure that others
should hear of the destruction of all that marvellous grace and queenly
loveliness! She lived long enough to see her daughter blossom into
girlhood,--then,--she died. I could not bear to have her laid in the
damp, wormy earth--you know in our creed earth-burial is not
practiced,--so I laid her tenderly away in a king's tomb of
antiquity,--a tomb known only to myself and one who assisted me to lay
her in her last resting-place. There she sleeps right royally,--and now
is your mind relieved, my lad? For the reports of the Bosekop folk must
certainly h