He remains stretched out motionless. A woman enters from an inner chamber. It is Sieglinde. She takes compassion on the helpless fugitive, admires his noble bearing, gives him drink, and bids him tarry till her husband be home. They gaze upon each other with ever-increasing interest and emotion. Suddenly Siegmund starts up as if to go.
"Who pursues thee?" she inquires.
"Ill fate pursues where'er I go. To thee, wife, may it never come. Forth from thy house I fly."
She calls him back. "Then bide thou here. Thou canst not bring ill fate where ill fate already makes its home."
He leans against the hearth. Again the eyes of the twain meet.
Hunding enters, regards the stranger with suspicion, notes the resemblance between him and Sieglinde; but he consents to harbor him for the night.
"Thy name and fortune?"
"Wehwalt," says Siegmund, "for woe still waits on my steps; Wehwalt, the son of Wolfe." And thus concealing his race, he tells a story in other respects true: how in his childhood a cruel host had laid waste his home and killed his mother and carried away the sister who was his twin, and how he and his father, the Wolf, for years had battled in the woodlands against the Neidings.
The Neidings! They are Hunding's clan.
"My house holds thee, Wölfing, to-night. To-morrow defend thee; with death thou shalt pay for this life!" And Hunding withdraws, Sieglinde with him.