rdered imagination had been able thus promptly to conjure
up with such correctness, an idea of Errington's future relations with
Thelma, was a riddle impossible of explanation. He thought, too, with a
sort of generous remorse, of that occasion when Sigurd had visited him
on board the yacht to implore him to leave the Altenfjord. He realized
everything,--the inchoate desires of the desolate being, who, though
intensely capable of loving, felt himself in a dim, sad way, unworthy of
love,--the struggling passions in him that clamored for utterance--the
instinctive dread and jealousy of a rival, while knowing that he was
both physically and mentally unfitted to compete with one,--all these
things passed through Philip's mind, and filled him with a most profound
pity for the hidden sufferings, the tortures and inexplicable emotions
which had racked Sigurd's darkened soul. And, still busy with these
reflections, he turned on his arm as he lay, and whispered softly to his
friend who was close by him--"I say, Lorimer,--I feel as if I had been
to blame somehow in this affair! If I had never come on the scene,
Sigurd would still have been happy in his own way."

Lorimer was silent. After a pause, Errington went on still in the same
low tone.

"Poor little fellow! Do you know, I can't imagine anything more utterly
distracting than having to see such a woman as Thelma day after
day,--loving her all the time, and knowing such love to be absolutely
hopeless! Why, it was enough to make him crazier than ever!"

Lorimer moved restlessly. "Yes, it must have been hard on him!" he
answered at last, in a gentle, somewhat sad tone. "Perhaps it's as well
he's out of it all. Life is infinitely perplexing to many of us. By this
time he's no doubt wiser than you or I, Phil,--he could tell us the
reason why love is such a blessing to some men, and such a curse to
others!"

Errington made no answer, and they relapsed into silence--silence which
was almost unbroken save by an occasional deep sigh from Olaf Gueldmar
and a smothered exclamation such as, "Poor lad, poor lad! Who would have
thought it?"

With the early dawn they were all up and ready for the homeward
journey,--though with very different feelings to those with which they
had started on their expedition. The morning was dazzlingly bright and
clear,--and the cataract of Njedegorze rolled down in glittering folds
of creamy white and green, uttering its ceaseless psalm of praise to the