!"

Gueldmar uttered a sharp cry, and shook himself free from her touch. In
the same instant his hand flew to the hilt of the hunting-knife in his
girdle.

"_Killed_ her! By the gods--"

Ulrika sprang before him. "Shame!" she cried sternly. "She is dying!"

"Too slowly for me!" exclaimed the _bonde_ furiously.

"Peace--peace!" implored Ulrika. "Let her speak!"

"Strike, Olaf Gueldmar!" said Lovisa, in a deep voice, harsh, but all
untremulous--"Strike, pagan, with whom the law of blood is
supreme--strike to the very center of my heart--I do not fear you! I
killed her, I say--and therein I, the servant of the Lord, was
justified! Think you that the Most High hath not commanded His elect to
utterly destroy and trample underfoot their enemies?--and is not
vengeance mine as well as thine, accursed slave of Odin?"

A spasm of pain here interrupted her--she struggled violently for
breath--and Ulrika supported her. Gueldmar stood motionless, white with
restrained fury, his eyes blazing. Recovering by slow degrees, Lovisa
once more spoke--her voice was weaker, and sounded a long way off.

"Yea, the Lord hath been on my side!" she said, and the hideous
blasphemy rattled in her throat as it was uttered. "Listen--and hear how
He delivered mine enemy into my hands. I watched her always--I followed
her many and many a time, though she never saw me. I knew her favorite
path across the mountains,--it led past a rocky chasm. On the edge of
that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there she would sit often,
reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the Fjord, and listening to
the prattle of her child. I used to dream of that stone, and wonder if I
could loosen it! It was strongly imbedded in the earth--but each day I
went to it--each day I moved it! Little by little I worked--till a mere
touch would have set it hurling downwards,--yet it looked as firm as
ever." Gueldmar uttered a fierce ejaculation of anguish--he put one hand
to his throat as though he were stifling. Lovisa, watching him, smiled
vindictively, and continued--

"When I had done all I could do, I lay in wait for her, hoping and
praying--my hour came at last! It was a bright sunny morning--a little
bird had been twittering above the very place--as it flew away, _she_
approached--a book was in her hand,--her child followed her at some
little distance off. Fortune favored me--a cluster of pansies had opened
their blossoms a few inches below the stone,--she saw