Woman, behold your work." She shook her beautiful head and answered, almost in a whisper: "Nay, Olaf, I am come to beg a boon of you: that you will slay me, here and now." "Am I a butcher--or a priest ?" I muttered.
"Oh, slay me, slay me, Olaf!" she went on, throwing herself upon her knees before me, and rending open her blue robe that her young breast might take the sword.

"Thus, perchance, I, who love life, may pay some of the price of sin, who, if I slew myself, would but multiply the debt, which in truth I dare not do." Still I shook my head, and once more she spoke: "Olaf, in this way or in that doubtless my end will find me, for, if you refuse this office, there are others of sterner stuff.

The knife that smote Steinar is not blunted.

Yet, before I die, who am come here but to die, I pray you hear the truth, that my memory may be somewhat less vile to you in the after years.

Olaf, you think me the falsest of the false, yet I am not altogether so.