ed. "If so, it is too late. Woman,
behold your work."

She shook her beautiful head and answered, almost in a whisper:

"Nay, Olaf, I am come to beg a boon of you: that you will slay me, here
and now."

"Am I a butcher--or a priest?" I muttered.

"Oh, slay me, slay me, Olaf!" she went on, throwing herself upon her
knees before me, and rending open her blue robe that her young breast
might take the sword. "Thus, perchance, I, who love life, may pay some
of the price of sin, who, if I slew myself, would but multiply the debt,
which in truth I dare not do."

Still I shook my head, and once more she spoke:

"Olaf, in this way or in that doubtless my end will find me, for, if you
refuse this office, there are others of sterner stuff. The knife that
smote Steinar is not blunted. Yet, before I die, who am come here but to
die, I pray you hear the truth, that my memory may be somewhat less vile
to you in the after years. Olaf, you think me the falsest of the false,
yet I am not altogether so. Hark you now! At the time that Steinar
sought me, some madness took him. So soon as we were alone together, his
first words were: 'I am bewitched. I love you.'

"Olaf, I'll not deny that his worship stirred my blood, for he was
goodly--well, and different to you, with your dreaming eyes and thoughts
that are too deep for me. And yet, by my breath, I swear that I meant
no harm. When we rode together to the ship, it was my purpose to return
upon the morrow and be made your wife. But there upon the ship my father
compelled me. It was his fancy that I should break with you and be wed
to Steinar, who had become so great a lord and who pleased him better
than you did, Olaf. And, as for Steinar--why, have I not told you that
he was mad for me?"

"Steinar's tale was otherwise, Iduna. He said that you went first, and
that he followed."

"Were those his words, Olaf? For, if so, how can I give the dead the
lie, and one who died through me? It seems unholy. Yet in this matter
Steinar had no reason left to him and, whether you believe me or no, I
tell the truth. Oh! hear me out, for who knows when they will come to
take me, who have walked into this nest of foes that I may be taken?
Pray as I would, the ship was run out, and we sailed for Lesso. There,
in my father's hall, upon my knees, I entreated him to hold his hand.
I told him what was true: that, of you twain, it was you I loved, not
Steinar. I told him that if he forced this marriage,