. . .Thou chosest the hard flint stone, near to it lay glowing at thy feet the rose, exhaling fragrance towards thee."

Then Halfred sprang upon his horse, and cried to the veiled one--

"Nobler hold I it in a woman to be too cold, than too ardent." And he dashed away.

And only once, as he told me, he looked back. So beautiful, he said, had she never before been, in the full light of day, as now in the moonlight, her black eyes glittered--for she had torn off her head covering--and she called after him by his name, "Halfred," and her blue-black hair fluttered round her in the night wind like a ghostly veil.

CHAPTER VII.

And when the depth of winter was passed, and the spring was come, Halfred sent a message to Upsala, to King Hartstein, that at the midsummer tide Dame Harthild should bear a child.

And the wise women . . . Read More