He wandered restlessly from chamber to chamber; not a thought could he find to soothe him; sleep fled from his eyes, and from one terrible imagination he could only fall into another yet more terrible. He thought he must be mad, and that what he had seen was but a crazed dream; but Walters' features had been too vivid, and all was again a riddle. He resolved to leave the castle, and set out upon his travels, to bring his mind again into order: every thought of friendship, every wish for society, he had now given up for ever. He set out without having made up his mind which way he would go; indeed he thought little of the country through which he passed. One day he had been riding for some time at a rapid pace among the mountains, when he found himself suddenly involved in a labyrinth of rocks, from which he could not discover any way of escape. At last he fell in with an old countryman, who shewed him a path leading past a waterfall. He offered the old man some money as a reward, but he declined to accept it. "What is the matter with me?" said Egbert to himself; "I could have fancied this was Walters again." He looked round, and Walters it certainly was. Egbert spurred his horse on at its utmost speed; he flew away over rocks and through woods and meadows, until at length it sunk exhausted under him to the earth. He did not pause to think of this, but continued to hurry on on foot. In a kind of half-dream, he climbed a little hill; he fancied he heard the lively barking of a dog somewhere near him. Tall chestnuts rustled in the wind, and he caught the strange wild strains of a song: "In my forest-home Again sing I, Where pain hath no life; No envy and strife. Oh, am I not happy In my forest home?" Egbert was completely stupified, his senses reeled; all seemed a dark painful riddle to him. He could not tell whether he was dreaming now, or whether he had not dreamt of a Bertha as his wife. The common and the wonderful were so strangely mingled together; the world round him was enchanted.... His thoughts and recollections swam confusedly before his mind. A crooked hump-backed old woman came panting up the hill with a crutch. "Are you come to bring me my bird? my pearls? my dog?" she screamed to him; "see how wickedness is its own punisher! I was your friend Walters--I was Hugo." "God in heaven," muttered Egbert to himself, "to what dreadful place have I wandered? Where am I?" "And Bertha was your sister." Egbert fell to the ground. "What made her run away from me in that way? the time of trial was almost over, and thus all had ended well. She was the daughter of a knight; he sent her to the herdsman to be brought up. She was your father's daughter." "Oh, why, why have I ever had this dreadful foreboding?" cried Egbert. "Because when you were young you once heard your father speak of it. He could not let her stay with him, for he was afraid of his wife; she was the child of an earlier marriage."