The knight, partly undressed, had already dismissed his attendants, and in a mood of deep dejection he was standing before a large mirror; a taper was burning dimly beside him. There was a gentle tap at his door. Undine used to tap thus when she wanted playfully to tease him "It is all fancy," said he to himself; "I must seek my nuptial bed." "So you must, but it must be a cold one!" he heard a tearful voice say from without, and then he saw in the mirror his door opening slowly--slowly--and the white figure entered, carefully closing it behind her. "They have opened the spring," said she softly, "and now I am here, and you must die." He felt in his paralyzed heart that it could not be otherwise, but covering his eyes with his hands he said: "Do not make me mad with terror in my hour of death. If you wear a hideous face behind that veil, do not raise it, but take my life, and let me see you not." "Alas!" replied the figure, "will you then not look upon me once more? I am as fair as when you wooed me on the promontory." "Oh, if it were so!" sighed Huldbrand, "and if I might die in your fond embrace!" "Most gladly, my loved one," said she; and throwing her veil back, her lovely face smiled forth divinely beautiful. Trembling with love and with the approach of death, she kissed him with a holy kiss; but not relaxing her hold she pressed him fervently to her, and as if she would weep away her soul. Tears rushed into the knight's eyes, and seemed to surge through his heaving breast, till at length his breathing ceased, and he fell softly back from the beautiful arms of Undine, upon the pillows of his couch--a corpse. "I have wept him to death," said she to some servants who met her in the ante-chamber; and, passing through the affrighted group, she went slowly out toward the fountain. CHAPTER XIX. HOW THE KNIGHT HULDBRAND WAS BURIED. Father Heilmann had returned to the castle as soon as the death of the lord of Ringstetten had been made known in the neighborhood, and he appeared at the very same moment that the monk who had married the unfortunate couple was fleeing from the gates overwhelmed with fear and terror. "It is well," replied Heilmann, when he was informed of this; "now my duties begin, and I need no associate." Upon this he began to console the bride, now a widow, small result as it produced upon her worldly thoughtless mind. The old fisherman, on the other hand, although heartily grieved, was far more resigned to the fate which had befallen his daughter and son-in-law, and while Bertalda could not refrain from abusing Undine as a murderess and sorceress, the old man calmly said: "It could not be otherwise after all; I see nothing in it but the judgment of God, and no one's heart has been more deeply grieved by Huldbrand's death than that of her by whom it was inflicted--the poor forsaken Undine!" At the same time he assisted in arranging the funeral solemnities as befitted the rank of the deceased.