She sprang up and went to the door in the rock. The birds fluttered anxiously around her, but she frightened them away with her hand, and touched the wall through which she had entered a year ago. The rock, not daring to refuse obedience to its mistress, opened, and fair Helga stepped out on the barren soil of Iceland. But after being so long accustomed to the warm summer air, she shuddered as she felt the icy breath of her old home, and with hurried steps she went to the point of the rock. Here she stopped, turned her beautiful face, and looked over her left shoulder towards the south-east. Before the power of this magic glance the veil of the distance vanished. Her look pierced through Iceland's fogs, flew over the eastern mountains, and swam on the Atlantic waves to the steep rock-bound coast of Norway. She saw the mysterious inhabitants of the mountains, and the mighty fairy king seated on his diamond throne, over which thousands of years had passed, leaving it still unshaken. Around him stood his people in their unfading youth and beauty, bowing in lowly reverence. But her husband's noble form was not among them; she could not meet the glance of his deep blue eye, though she anxiously examined every countenance. At last she looked sadly away, and turned to go back to her lonely kingdom. But when she went round the corner of the rock she saw a tall, manly form standing in the very place whence she had once watched her father and Olaffson as they rode away over the lava-fields. With a cry of joy she ran to the spot. Could it be that her husband had been so near, while she believed him far away? But the man, hearing her light footstep, turned his head, and she looked not on her husband's youthful beauty, but on the careworn face of her long-forgotten father. "Helga, Helga!" The words fell on her ear with a strange thrill. "My child, you are still alive, you are still on earth?" and he stretched out his arms towards her, and pressed her to his breast, while the hot tears fell on her brow. The long-silenced chords now sounded loudly in Helga's heart, memory awoke, and the fairy king's harp was not near to lull it to sleep again. "My dear, good father," she said, thinking now of none but him, "weep not. Your Helga lives and is happy; but how old you have grown, and how white your hair is!" "Yes, Helga, I had lost you, my only child; but now that I have found you my youthful vigour will return. Come home quickly, my daughter. How glad Olaffson will be." At these words Helga's heart trembled. "My dear, dear father," she said, gently stroking the furrowed cheeks, "I cannot go with you; I belong now to another world." Then she told her astonished father all that had happened to her since the hour when she said good-bye to him at the edge of the lava-field. "I have given my word," she concluded, "and, hard as it seems not to go with you, I dare not, I dare not."