"Truly, the first came to pass," said Hilda; "but----" she paused, and
her eye fell on the cyst; then breaking off she continued, speaking to
herself rather than to Githa--"And Harold's dream, what did that
portend? the runes fail me, and the dead give no voice. And beyond
one dim day, in which his betrothed shall clasp him with the arms of a
bride, all is dark to my vision--dark--dark. Speak not to me, Githa;
for a burthen, heavy as the stone on a grave, rests on a weary heart!"

A dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff to the fire,
the Vala said, "Lo, where the smoke and the flame contend--the smoke
rises in dark gyres to the air, and escapes, to join the wrack of
clouds. From the first to the last we trace its birth and its fall;
from the heart of the fire to the descent in the rain, so is it with
human reason, which is not the light but the smoke; it struggles but
to darken us; it soars but to melt in the vapour and dew. Yet, lo,
the flame burns in our hearth till the fuel fails, and goes at last,
none know whither. But it lives in the air though we see it not; it
lurks in the stone and waits the flash of the steel; it coils round
the dry leaves and sere stalks, and a touch re-illumines it; it plays
in the marsh--it collects in the heavens--it appals us in the
lightning--it gives warmth to the air--life of our life, and the
element of all elements. O Githa, the flame is the light of the soul,
the element everlasting; and it liveth still, when it escapes from our
view; it burneth in the shapes to which it passes; it vanishes, but
its never extinct."

So saying, the Vala's lips again closed; and again both the women sate
silent by the great fire, as it flared and flickered over the deep
lines and high features of Githa, the Earl's wife, and the calm,
unwrinkled, solemn face of the melancholy Vala.