"Speak thou," said he, "and let me listen."
Again the tide of love filled her full, even as the bitter creeks and marshes are flushed with the return of the water. Then struck her a sudden wild thought, and again she gazed earnestly into his eyes.
"Without words when thou came faint with weariness, thy glance looked so to me, till my despair was mild, and died in the light of the day that streamed on me. Wehwalt! ah no, such cannot be thy name. What is there of woe left? Not the shadow of the dream even!"
"No, I am Wehwalt no longer!" cried he, "for thy love has banished woe from me. That name which I gave myself is gone, for gone is woe. Ah, woman, woman, give me my name; tell me by what name I shall be called, and that, thy gift, and none other shall be my name."
Then looked she at him as one half lost in thought.
"And Wolf, was Wolf thy father's true name?" she asked.
"Wolf he was called," said the stranger, "and as Wolf he was feared, for he was as a wolf among timorous foxes. Yet it was not as Wolf I knew him. His glance was bright as thine, and as far-reaching, and that glance was the glance of Walse." Then was that mystery of fate by which she was led to him, even as Spring the brother met Love the sister on the threshold of their hearts, made manifest to her, and the knowledge drove her beside herself.
"So," she said, "Walse was thy father, and thou art a Wolsung. For thy sake did Walse fling the sword into the ash-stem, for well know I that it was Walse who flung it there and no other. And on my tongue thy true name trembles, the name by which I love thee—Siegmund, Siegmund."
Then sprang Siegmund, stranger no longer, to the ash-stem, and in his right hand seized he the gleaming hilt.
"Thou sayest it!" he cried, "and the sword shall prove I am Siegmund. For Walse told me that when my need was sorest then should the sword of deliverance and victory be near me. Has it not come? Has not my need been sore? For love is the sorest need a man can know, and that is mine; and deep is the dear wound it has made in my breast. Burn deeper yet, O wound, stirring me to strife and strenuous deed. Lo! I name it, the sword of need—Nothung, Nothung. Come forth then, Nothung, leave thy dark sheath, and bare thy shining blade. I, Siegmund, bid thee."