Thelma looked up,--her large blue eyes filled with sudden tears, and she pressed her father's hand between her own, as though in sympathy with some undeclared grief; then she looked at Errington with a sort of wistful appeal.

Philip's heart leaped as he met that soft beseeching glance, which seemed to entreat his patience with the old man for her sake--he felt himself drawn into a bond of union with her thoughts, and in his innermost soul he swore as knightly a vow of chivalry and reverence for the fair maiden, who thus took him into her silent confidence, as though he were some gallant Crusader of old time, pledged to defend his lady's honor unto death.

Olaf Gueldmar, after a long and apparently sorrowful pause, resumed his conversation.
"Yes," he said, "Thelma is a Catholic, though here she has scarcely any opportunity for performing the duties of her religion.

It is a pretty and a graceful creed,--well fitted for women.

As for me, I am made of sterner stuff, and the maxims of that gentle creature, Christ, find no echo in my soul.