EGIL You love me; you Who fostered me, the wild thing, love me still. My secret scar is on you; you are mine, Not his.
THORDIS Oh, leave me!
EGIL Yet you seize my hand.
THORDIS Leave me, leave me!
EGIL Yet you take me to your heart.
THORDIS A myriad loves the heart hath, but one mate. Once only may the cry of soul and body Be answered; the great need can be but once.
EGIL Now is the great need come.
THORDIS How may we know?
EGIL I am your being’s master. If his soul Were listening to us now, I would cry out: “I have outgrown thee, brother. What thou art I am and more, for I have wrung from thee Thy potent mind, and forged it to my passions To make a lordlier instrument. Mine, therefore, Not thine, the ordainèd need of her. Mine!”
THORDIS Love me! [He kisses her. Arfi moves into the thicket and disappears. Thordis, putting Egil from her, draws a dagger upon herself.] Ah, my betrayer! It is ended.