Yet still the god looked not at her, and Brunnhilde nigh despaired. Yet alone with him, for the twain were indeed not two but one, she could beseech and entreat him, though before her sisters she thought shame to do so, and slowly the words were wrung from her, like dropping blood from some deep-welling wound.
"Father, father!" she cried, "look once again in mine eyes, and let the light of thine dwell once more on my face, and search it well and remember what has been, and let not the loving-kindness of old days be forgotten. So, maybe, shall thy wrath not burn so fiercely against me, and thy anger be assuaged. Cast the strong and clear light of thy knowledge on the sin I have committed, and look well at it to see if indeed it merits this doom, so that thy child must be for ever forsaken by thee, and her love no more brought to remembrance."
Then looked he at her, but no ray shot across the sombre gloom of his face.
"Look at thy sin thyself," said he, "and let thy mind be to thee a lantern that illumines it. Mark it carefully, and know fully indeed what thou hast done. What need for me to tell thee. Thou knowest."
Then did Brunnhilde ponder on all they had said together the night before concerning the Wolsungs, and how Wotan's mind ere yet he had talked with Fricka had been to save Siegmund and destroy Hunding, for he was husband to Sieglinde only by name and vow, while Siegmund was the man she loved, and how he had commanded herself to fight well for Siegmund.
"Time was," she said, "when thou wert on Siegmund's side, and by thy side was I, as ever. It was the word that thou saidst to me then which was in my heart when I fought for him."
But the cloud moved not from Wotan's face, but sat throned there heavily.
"Hotfoot from speech with me thou wentest to the battle," said he. "Was the word of mine that then rang in thy ears to do as thou didst do?"
"Yet when first the lot was cast," said the maid, "the lot of death declared for Bunding."
"It was so," said he. "But the bidding I gave thee then I revoked, and thou knowest it. Yea, and thou didst know it even when the sin of disobedience was red upon thee."