an
answer which I do not know, since wrong can never be the right."

Then, as she did not seem to understand, I began to talk of other
things, but from that moment I felt as though a veil swung between me
and Iduna. Her beauty held my flesh, but some other part in me turned
away from her. We were different.

When we reached the hall we met Steinar, who was lingering near the
door. He ran forward and helped Iduna to dismount, then said:

"Olaf, I know that you must not overtire yourself as yet, but your lady
has told me that she desires to see the sunset from Odin's Mount. Have I
your leave to take her there?"

"I do not yet need Olaf's leave to walk abroad, though some few days
hence it may be different," broke in Iduna, with a merry laugh, before I
could answer. "Come, lord Steinar, let us go and see this sunset whereof
you talk so much."

"Yes, go," I said, "only do not stay too long, for I think a storm comes
up. But who is that has taught Steinar to love sunsets?"

So they went, and before they had been gone an hour the storm broke as I
had foreseen. First came wind, and with it hail, and after that thunder
and great darkness, lit up from time to time by pulsing lightning.

"Steinar and Iduna do not return. I am afraid for them," I said at last
to Freydisa.

"Then why do you not go to seek them?" she asked with a little laugh.

"I think I will," I said.

"If so, I will come with you, Olaf, for you still need a nurse, though,
for my part, I hold that the lord Steinar and the lady Iduna can guard
themselves as well as most folk. No, I am wrong. I mean that the lady
Iduna can guard herself and the lord Steinar. Now, be not angry. Here's
your cloak."

So we started, for I was urged to this foolish journey by some impulse
that I could not master. There were two ways of reaching Odin's Mount;
one, the shorter, over the rocks and through the forest land. The other,
the longer, ran across the open plain, between the many earth tombs of
the dead who had lived thousands of years before, and past the great
mound in which it was said that a warrior of long ago, who was named the
Wanderer, lay buried. Because of the darkness we chose this latter road,
and presently found ourselves beneath the great mass of the Wanderer's
Mount. Now the darkness was intense, and the lightning grew rare, for
the hail and rain had ceased and the storm was rolling away.

"My counsel is," said Freydisa, "that we wait here until the moon