Sigurd pushed aside the branches cautiously and approached. He sat down by Lorimer, and, taking his hand, kissed it deferentially.
"I followed you. I saw you go away to grieve alone. I came to grieve also!" he said with a patient gentleness.
Lorimer laughed languidly. "By Jove, Sigurd, you're too clever for your age! Think I came away to grieve, eh? Not so, my boy—came away to smoke! There's a come-down for you! I never grieve—don't know how to do it. What is grief?"
"To love!" answered Sigurd promptly. "To see a beautiful elf with golden wings come fluttering, fluttering gently down from the sky,—you open your arms to catch her—so! . . . and just as you think you have her, she leans only a little bit on one side, and falls, not into your heart—no!—into the heart of some one else! That is grief, because, when she has gone, no more elves come down from the sky,—for you, at any rate,—good things may come for others,—but for you the heavens are empty!"
Lorimer was silent, looking at the speaker curiously.
"How do you get all this nonsense into your head, eh?" he inquired kindly.
"I do not know," replied Sigurd with a sigh. "It comes! But, tell me,"—and he smiled wistfully—"it is true, dear friend—good friend—it is all true, is it not? For you the heavens are empty? You know it!"
Lorimer flushed hotly, and then grew strangely pale. After a pause, he said in his usual indolent way—
"Look here, Sigurd; you're romantic! I'm not. I know nothing about elves or empty heavens. I'm all right! Don't you bother yourself about me."
The dwarf studied his face attentively, and a smile of almost fiendish cunning suddenly illumined his thin features. He laid his weak-looking white hand on the young man's arm and said in a lower tone—