After a winter of lies.”
He then bids Aelfrida help him keep up his deception to the King, and to retire and dim her beauty:
“Go now, and darken thy cheek with the sap of the walnut,
And dust thy hair with the meal of the wheat,—
Be foul, be bent, be weatherèd,
And keep thy bower, that none may see thee,
But myself and the King!”
Aelfrida departs to do his bidding—or so Aethelwold thinks.
Eadgar and his men enter singing the folk-song of the first act. As he greets Aethelwold, and asks to be taken to the bride, Aelfrida suddenly appears in the doorway, in all her jewels, proud, beautiful and splendid. Eadgar’s arm slowly drops from Aethelwold’s shoulders, and the orchestra in a discordant crash sounds the pledge motive.
After Eadgar’s sorrowful rebuke, Aethelwold plunges his dagger into his breast, and a brief threnody is spoken by the King. Then follows the choral ending of the opera, with the King intoning his lament against the chorus of retainers and woodsmen, and the orchestra playing a passage, reminiscent of the “farewell to Devon” theme!—