“It is an old Norse chant which my mother taught me; she was a Dane, as my father is also by descent. It has come down in her family for many, many generations, and the legend is that the women of her race always sang it or repeated it while the men were fighting, and, if they had the strength, in the hour of their own death. I believe that is true, for she died whispering it herself; yes, it grew fainter and fainter until it ceased with her breath. So, when I thought that my hour had come, I sang it also, for the first time, for I tried to be brave, and wished to go as my forefathers went. It is a foolish old custom, but I like old customs. I am ashamed that you should have heard it. I thought myself alone. That is all.” “You are a very strange young lady,” said Morris, staring at her. “Strange?” she answered, laughing. “Not at all; only I wanted to show those scores of dead people that their traditions and spirit still lived on in me, their poor modern child. Think how glad they must have been to hear the old chant as they swept by in the wind just now, waiting to give me welcome.” Morris stared still harder. Was this beautiful girl mad? He knew something of the old Norse literature and myths. A fantastic vision rose up in his mind of her forebears, scores and hundreds of them gathered at some ghostly Walhalla feast, listening to the familiar paean as it poured from her fearless heart, and waiting to rise and greet her, the last newcomer of their blood, with “_Skoll_, daughter, _skoll!_” She watched him as though she read his thought. “You see, they would have been pleased; it is only natural,” she said; “and I have a great respect for the opinion of my ancestors.” “Then you are sure they still exist in some shape or form, and are conscious?” She laughed again. “Of course I am sure. The world of spirits, as I think, is the real world. The rest is a nightmare; at least, it seems like a nightmare, because we don’t know the beginning or the end of the dream.” “The old Egyptians thought something like that,” said Morris reflectively. “They only lived to die.” “But we,” she answered, “should only die to live, and that is why I try not to be afraid. I daresay, however, I mean the same as they did, only you do not seem to have put their thought quite clearly.” “You are right; I meant that for them death was but a door.” “That is better, I think,” she said. “That was their thought, and that is my thought; and,” she added, searching his face, “perhaps your thought also.” “Yes,” he answered, “though somehow you concentrate it; I have never seen things, or, rather, this thing, quite so sharply.”