“This is life as in truth it is,” she said. “It is well that I understand at last how terrible everything really is, and how little anything matters.” Forcing herself to tread the rug with steady step, she came where the King stood by an open window. He was as changed as the room, though in honor of his bride he wore again state robes of silk and cloth-of-gold, for the fire of the Northern lights was gone out of his face, leaving it dull and lustreless. In the garden below, a minstrel was making hay in the sun of the royal glance by a rapid improvising of flattering verses which he was shouting lustily to his twanging harp, but now the King’s hand rose curtly. “Your imagination has no small power, friend, yet save some virtues in case you should want to sing to me again,” he advised as he tossed down a coin and turned away. His ward courtesied deeply before him. “For your justice, King Canute, I give you thanks drawn from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “I welcome you to your own, Lady of Avalcomb,” he answered 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—”