counting for tastes. As for man's fidelity, I
wouldn't give a straw for it--and for his morality--!" She finished the
sentence with a scornful laugh, and left the boudoir to return to the
rest of the company.

Errington, meanwhile, knocked softly at the door of his wife's
bedroom--and receiving no answer, turned the handle noiselessly and went
in. Thelma lay on the bed, dressed as she was, her cheek resting on her
hand, and her face partially hidden. Her husband approached on tiptoe,
and lightly kissed her forehead. She did not stir,--she appeared to
sleep profoundly.

"Poor girl!" he thought, "she's tired out, and no wonder, with all the
bustle and racket of these people! A good thing if she can rest a little
before the evening closes in."

And he stole quietly out of the room, and meeting Britta on the stairs
told her on no account to let her mistress be disturbed till it was time
for the illumination of the grounds. Britta promised,--Britta's eyes
were red--one would almost have fancied she had been crying. But Thelma
was not asleep--she had felt her husband's kiss,--her heart had beat as
quickly as the wing of a caged wild bird at his warm touch,--and now he
had gone she turned and pressed her lips passionately on the pillow
where his hand had leaned. Then she rose languidly from the bed, and,
walking slowly to the door, locked it against all comers. Presently she
began to pace the room up and down,--up and down,--her face was very
white and weary, and every now and then a shuddering sigh broke from her
lips.

"Can I believe it? Oh no!--I cannot--I will not!" she murmured. "There
must be some mistake--Clara has heard wrongly." She sighed again.
"Yet--if it is so,--he is not to blame--it is I--I who have failed to
please him. Where--how have I failed?"

A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped in
her walk to and fro.

"It cannot be true!" she said half aloud,--"it is altogether unlike him.
Though Clara says--and she has known him so long!--Clara says he loved
_her_ once--long before he saw me--my poor Philip!--he must have
suffered by that love!--perhaps that is why he thought life so wearisome
when he first came to the Altenfjord--ah! the Altenfjord!"

A choking sob rose in her throat--but she repressed it. "I must try not
to weary him," she continued softly--"I must have done so in some way,
or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard,--it is not for
me to ask him quest