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.
When the stream had grown quiet the knight would go back to the lady for whose sake he had undergone such strange perils. And of that time the wilful maiden did not wish to think.