les on my head if I were to----?
Who knows; who knows! It may be safest to refrain. (Takes up the
light again.) I shall have my child again. _That_ must suffice
me. I will try to rest. All these desperate thoughts,--I will
sleep them away.
(Goes towards the back, but stops in the middle of the hall,
and says broodingly:)
A king's mother!

(Goes slowly out at the back, to the left.)

(After a short pause, NILS LYKKE and ELINA GYLDENLOVE enter
noiselessly by the first door on the left. NILS LYKKE has
a small lantern in his hand.)

NILS LYKKE. (throws the light from his lantern around, so as to
search the room). All is still. I must begone.

ELINA. Oh, let me look but once more into your eyes, before
you leave me.

NILS LYKKE (embraces her). Elina!

ELINA (after a short pause). Will you come nevermore to Ostrat?

NILS LYKKE. How can you doubt that I will come? Are you not
henceforth my betrothed?--But will _you_ be true to _me_, Elina?
Will you not forget me ere we meet again?

ELINA. Do you ask if I _will_ be true? Have I any will left
then? Have I power to be untrue to you, even if I would?--you
came by night; you knocked upon my door;--and I opened to you.
You spoke to me. What was it you said? You gazed in my eyes.
What was the mystic might that turned my brain and lured me, as
it were, within a magic net? (Hides her face on his shoulder.)
Oh, look not on me, Nils Lykke! You must not look upon me after
this---- True, say you ? Do you not own me? I am yours;--I
must be yours--to all eternity.

NILS LYKKE. Now, by my knightly honour, ere the year be past,
you shall sit as my wife in the hall of my fathers.

ELINA. No vows, Nils Lykke! No oaths to me.

NILS LYKKE. What mean you? Why do you shake your head so
mournfully?

ELINA. Because I know that the same soft words wherewith you
turned my brain, you have whispered to so many a one before. Nay,
nay, be not angry, my beloved! In nought do I reproach you, as
I did while yet I knew you not. Now I understand how high above
all others is your goal. How can love be aught to you but a
pastime, or woman but a toy?

NILS LYKKE. Elina,--hear me!

ELINA. As I grew up, your name was ever in my ears. I hated
the name, for meseemed that all women were dishonoured by your
life. And yet,--how strange!--when I built up in my dreams the
life that should be mine, you were ever