Signë.
[Softly to Gudmund.] Oh, tell me, what does all this mean?
Gudmund.
[Whispering.] We must both leave Solhoug this very night.
Signë.
God shield me—you would—!
Gudmund.
Say nought of it! No word to any one, not even to your sister.
Margit.
[To herself.] She—it is she! She of whom he had scarce thought before to-night. Had I been free, I know well whom he had chosen.—Aye, free!
[Bengt and Guests, both Men and Women, enter from the house.
Young Men and Maidens.
Out here, out here be the feast arrayed,
While the birds are asleep in the greenwood shade.
How sweet to sport in the flowery glade
'Neath the birches.
Out here, out here, shall be mirth and jest,
No sigh on the lips and no care in the breast,
When the fiddle is tuned at the dancers' 'hest,
'Neath the birches.
