'This they did, and then he, laughing in my face, showed the gold to me ere he flung it back again into the cavern. 'Then the ugly little man called to the tiny goblins to stop their pranks and look at the coins I had given to him. When they caught sight of them they held their little sides, shaking with laughter; then all at once they turned and hissed at me. 'In spite of myself terror crept over me. Again I plunged my spurs into my horse's sides, and it dashed madly off into the midst of the forest. 'When at length the flight ended, the evening lay cool and quiet around me. A white footpath seemed to point out the way which led back to the city. But each time I tried to approach it a face peered at me from between the trees. I turned to escape from this new phantom, but in vain, for whichever way I turned there was the face still staring at me. 'I grew angry and urged my horse in the direction of the shadowy face, only however to find myself drenched by a stream of white foam. 'Thus I was driven away from the white footpath, and only one way, rough and tangled, was left open to me. As soon as I began to follow it, the face, though it kept close behind, did me no further harm. 'Yet again and again I turned, hoping to find that the face had disappeared. Instead I found it closer than before, and now I could see that it belonged to a tall white man. It was true that at times the long white figure seemed to be but a wandering stream, but of this I was never sure. I was weary now and my horse was exhausted. It seemed useless to try any longer to force my way past the white face, so I went on riding quietly along the one path left open to me. The head of the tall man then began to nod, as though to say that at length I was doing as he wished. 'By this path I reached the end of the wood, and as the meadows and the lake came into sight the white man vanished, and I found myself standing near to your little cottage.' As the knight had now finished the story of his adventure, the fisherman began to talk to his guest of how he might return in safety to the city and to the followers who there awaited him. Huldbrand, listening to the old man, yet caught the soft ripple of Undine's laughter. 'Why do you laugh, Undine?' asked the knight. 'Are you so pleased to hear your foster-father talk of my return to the city?' 'I laugh for joy that you cannot leave us,' said the maiden. 'You have but to look to see that you must stay.' Huldbrand and the fisherman rose and saw that what the maiden had said was indeed true. It would not be possible for the knight to leave the little island until the stream had once more returned to its usual course. As they entered the cottage, Huldbrand whispered to the maiden, 'Undine, tell me that you are glad that I cannot yet return to the crowded city.' But the maiden's face was no longer glad, nor would she answer the knight's question. She had remembered Bertalda.