"Is there no hope, Ethel, that ye will be my bride? Ye'll maybe change some day. I can wait twenty years, if ye bid me."
"There is no hope, my lord. There can be but one other change for me, and that will be when I don the cerements of the tomb."
"No hope, Ethel? No hope?" he slowly and painfully ejaculated, as though each word was a dagger thrust at his heart. "Then I am lost!"
Slowly he drew himself up, expanded his broad chest, and threw abroad his brawny arms, as though about to grapple with an enemy.
"Then," said he, "I'll have a sweet revenge on the Norman foe. I'll give my blood again to the soil I love so well, and get me a warrior's grave. Then, welcome Valhalla! Odin! Odin! Norseman's god!" he cried; "I am coming soon to join the hero spirits, awaiting me in the land beyond the dark and troubled sea."
His head drooped upon his chest, and he covered his face with his hands, whilst his whole frame quivered with emotion. It was the cry of a blind faith, but it was the cry of the soul, and it grappled him to the loving heart of infinite mercy.
Ethel trembled violently at the bitterness of soul displayed by this noble Viking, and the unbidden tears coursed down her cheeks in sympathy with his sorrow.
"Adieu, my lord! May God have mercy upon you," she said in broken and tender accents.
"Nay, Ethel! I'll go with you, I would like to see the door close upon you safe, if it must be. 'Tis not fitting ye should take this journey alone. These Norman dogs are abroad everywhere, and 'tis full of peril for ye to journey alone; they will not respect ye as I do. These Normans have no respect for such as you."
"I am sorry to say I cannot permit this, my lord. It would be both at your peril and my own. Do you not know what a heavy price these Normans have put upon your head?"