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For a moment Brunnhilde stood there watching with a strange exaltation the figure of Sieglinde as it grew ever dimmer in the dimness of the plumed pines, and when it was now quite vanished she turned again, and stood yet awhile with clenched hands and knitted brow, so that she might be mistress of herself when the heavy wrath of Wotan fell on her, and disgrace not her own nature nor the bright company of her fearless sisters. Little she seemed to care what doom he might mete out to her, for at the worst he could but deal her swift death, and if the sons of men could die bravely and blithely, meeting the face of death as they would meet a friend's face, could she do less, she the first of the children of Erda? For all that, she was afraid, and with her fear there cut her like a two-edged sword the pang of remorse that she had disobeyed him whom her soul loved.
Yet in this matter she knew well that were that choice again before her, she would do again as she had done, and not otherwise, for pity had enlightened her, and that sweet mandate was binding on her.