is true that I do
not always know for certain what I have at heart." His eyes came
back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. "When I began this
feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but now--"
he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves
that he had been rolling against his palm--"now I let not this go from
me more easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind."

Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a
fierceness that startled them. "One thing only I am sure of, and that is
that I have done forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a hindrance
to me, Rothgar's axe shall send him to Hel while it is broad daylight
and all his friends are looking. Such is my luck with craft as though
I had grasped a viper by the tail, in the belief that I had seized its
snout... I have been finely treated... Not only have I been betrayed by
all of you who have thought such thoughts of me, but now some troll
has got into me and turned me false to myself so that I cannot give you
punishment for your treason! Certainly the gods must think this crown of
great value since, before they give it to me, they take from me all that
I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my honor as well!"

He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel
it when his hand was bleeding. "Here I take oath that they shall cause
their gift to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and
honor and life itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for
I will put my whole strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall
not wrest it from me! I will be such a king that there will not be many
to equal me; such a king that they will wish they had given me happiness
and left me a man."

Whirling, he flung out his bleeding hand toward Elfgiva, and his mouth
was distorted with its bitterness. "Hear that, you who were so mad to
have your lord the King of England that you could not spend a thought on
the love of Canute of Denmark! You have got your wish,--go back now to
your Northamptonshire castle and think whether or not you are gladdened
by it."

"Go back!" Elfgiva fell from her height of injured dignity with a
piercing scream. "What is it you say, King? Now by the splendor of
heaven, you depart not for London without me! Be it known to you that I
am going to be your Queen."

At first he looked at her in genuine astonishment; after t