her
lap. Presently he changed the theme to one of more heart-appealing
passion--and a strange wild minor air, like the rushing of the wind
across the mountains, began to make itself heard through the subdued
rippling murmur of his improvised accompaniment. To his surprise and
fear, she started up, pressing her hands against her ears.

"Not that--not that song, my friend!" she cried, almost imploringly.
"Oh, it will break my heart! Oh, the Altenfjord!" And she gave way to a
passion of weeping.

"Thelma! Thelma!" and poor Lorimer, rising from the organ, stood gazing
at her in piteous dismay,--every nerve in his body wrung to anguish by
the sound of her sobbing. A mad longing seized him to catch her in his
arms,--to gather her and her sorrows, whatever they were, to his
heart!--and he had much ado to restrain himself.

"Thelma," he presently said, in a gentle voice that trembled just a
little, "Thelma, what is troubling you? You call me your brother--give
me a brother's right to your confidence." He bent over her and took her
hand. "I--I can't bear to see you cry like this! Tell me--what's the
matter? Let me fetch Philip."

She looked up with wild wet eyes and quivering lips.

"Oh no--no!" she murmured, in a tone of entreaty and alarm. "Do
not,--Philip must not know--I do wish him always to see me bright and
cheerful--and--it is nothing! It is that I heard something which grieved
me--"

"What was it?" asked Lorimer, remembering Duprez's recent remarks.

"Oh, I would not tell you!" she said eagerly, drying her eyes and
endeavoring to smile, "because I am sure it was a mistake, and all
wrong--and I was foolish to fancy that such a thing could be, even for a
moment. But when one does not know the world, it seems cruel--"

"Thelma, what do you mean?" and George surveyed her in some perplexity.
"If any one's been bothering or vexing you, just you tell Phil all about
it. Don't have any secrets from him,--he'll soon put everything
straight, whatever it is."

She shook her head slightly. "Ah, you do not understand!" she said
pathetically, "how should you? Because you have not given your life away
to any one, and it is all different with you. But when you do love--if
you are at all like me,--you will be so anxious to always seem worthy of
love--and you will hide all your griefs away from your beloved,--so that
your constant presence shall not seem tiresome. And I would not for all
the world trouble Philip with my silly