For an uncertain moment, near the end of the aria, it looked as if Maria could not finish. She swayed, held tightly to the microphone for support. Walther stepped forward to catch her, but she recovered, drawing on some inner source of strength to finish:
"... This will all come to pass, as I tell you!
Banish your idle fears ...
For he will return, I know it!"
As Maria finished, she tore herself away from the microphone. Her lips were trembling; her eyes were wide, like those of a woman in shock. She half-ran out of the barn, stopped—confused—in the bright sunlight, and then ran on down the path toward the Inn.
Until late afternoon, Maria would see no one. Then she agreed to see Willy for a few moments.
When the old maestro left her room, he looked deeply troubled.
"I don't know ..." he told Walther, shaking his head. "I don't know what this has done to her."
"What did she say?"