the midnight sun
Overcoming by degrees his first sensations of awe , he approached the sarcophagus and examined it . It was solidly closed and mortared all round , so that it might have been one compact coffin-shaped block of stone so far as its outward appearance testified . Stooping more closely , however , to look at the brilliant poppy-wreath , he started back with a slight exclamation . Cut deeply in the hard granite he read for the second time that odd name -- THELMA It belonged to some one dead , then -- not to the lovely living woman who had so lately confronted him in the burning glow of the midnight sun ? He felt dismayed at his unthinking precipitation , -- he had , in his fancy , actually associated _ her _ , so full of radiant health and beauty , with what was probably a mouldering corpse in that hermetically sealed tenement of stone ! This idea was unpleasant , and jarred upon his feelings . Surely she , that golden-haired nymph of the Fjord , had nothing to do with death !