swered as he
returned her salutation. Leaning against the window frame he stood a
long while looking at her in silence,--so long that she was startled
when at last he spoke. "Yet for the good of the realm, I must lay on
your odal one burden, Frode's daughter."

"What is that, King?"

"It is that before the year is out you take a husband who shall be able
to defend your land in time of need."

Her white cheeks went very red before him and then grew very pale again,
while her breast rose and fell convulsively. But she clasped her hands
over it as though to still its protest and, suddenly, she flung up her
head in a kind of trembling defiance. "What does it matter? King, I know
what a Danish woman owes her race. Choose you the man and this shall,
like other things, be as you wish."

It was evident that her answer took him by surprise, for he bent from
the wall to observe her. "I choose!" he repeated. "Have you then no
choice?"

She tried to say "No"; she tried desperately to say it; but already her
courage was crumbling under her. All at once she took her hands from her
breast to hold them out pleadingly, and her voice was broken: "Lord, let
me go back to Avalcomb--now--to-day!"

"Wherefore to-day?" he asked. "I had thought you would remain here for a
while and get honor from Queen Emma." A moment he looked away from
her, out of the window at the drifting clouds. "I can tell you, Frode's
daughter, that while she is noble in her birth, she is still nobler in
her mind," he said gravely. "Little would there be in her service for
you to take ill. I think it possible that she might be highly helpful
to you. There is that about her which makes the good in one come out and
bask like a snake in the sun, while the evil slinks away shadow-like--"

She interrupted him with a cry that was half a sob. "Lord King, I cannot
bear it to see more people that are strange to me! Since I left my
father's house I have felt the starkness of strangers, and now--now I
can endure it no longer. My heart within me is as though it were bruised
black and blue. Let me go back where all know me,--where none will hold
me off at arm's length to challenge me with his eyes, but all love me
and place faith in me because they know me. Lord, give me leave to go
home,--I pray it of you! Beseech it of you!" Entreating, she would have
fallen at his feet if he had not caught her hands and stayed her.

He did not release them immediately but tightened his g