told or to speak to a daughter's lover.

"They were much taken up together after that, and I was alone, and
I missed Cnut sorely, and would have longed for him more but for her
happiness. But one day, when he had been gone two months, I looked over
the mountain, and on the snow I saw a black speck. It had not been there
before, and I watched it as it moved, and I knew it was Cnut.

"I said nothing until he came, and then I ran and met him. He was thin,
and worn, and older; but his eyes had a look in them which I thought was
joy at getting home; only they were not soft, and he looked taller than
when he left, and he spoke little. His eyes softened when she, hearing
his voice, came out and held out her hand to him, smiling to welcome
him; but he did not kiss her as kinsfolk do after long absence, and when
Harold came out the wolf-look came back into his eyes. Harold looked
not so pleased to see him, but held out his hand to greet him. But Cnut
stepped back, and suddenly drawing from his breast a letter placed it in
his palm, saying slowly, 'I have been to England, Lord Harold, and have
brought you this from your Lady Ethelfrid Penrith--they expect you to
your wedding at the New Year.' Harold turned as white as the snow under
his feet, and she gave a cry and fell full length on the ground.

"Cnut was the first to reach her, and lifting her in his arms he bore
her into the house. Harold would have seized her, but Cnut brushed him
aside as if he had been a barley-straw, and carried her and laid her
down. When she came to herself she did not remember clearly what had
happened. She was strange to me who was her father, but she knew him.
I could have slain him, but she called him. He went to her, and she
understood only that he was going away, and she wept. He told her it
was true that he had loved another woman and had promised to marry her,
before he had met her, but now he loved her better, and he would go home
and arrange everything and return; and she listened and clung to him. I
hated him and wanted him to go, but he was my guest, and I told him that
he could not go through the snow; but he was determined. It seemed as if
he wanted now to get away, and I was glad to have him go, for my child
was strange to me, and if he had deceived one woman I knew he might
another, and Cnut said that the letter he had sent by him before the
snow came was to say he would come in time to be married at the New
Year; and Cnut said he live