"I cannot bear, Ilse, that my wilful child should sleep beneath the rocks in the very sight of her home."
"Do not mind about me. I have the moon and the stars over me; you know that I do not fear the dwarfs of the cave, nor on my mountain the power of man."
The twilight of evening fell on the deep valley, and the mist rose from the water; it floated slowly from tree to tree, it undulated and rolled its long, dusky veil between Ilse and her father's house. The trunks of the trees and the roof of the house disappeared, and the grotto seemed to hover in clouds of air separated from the earth amidst indistinct shadows, which hung round the entrance of the rock and fluttered at Ilse's feet, then collected together and dissolved.
Ilse sat on the bench at the entrance, her hands folded over her knees, appearing in her light dress, like a fairy woman of olden times, a ruler of the floating shadows. She gazed along her side of the shore on the mountain-path that led from Rossau.
The distant steps of a wanderer sounded through the damp fog. Ilse took hold of the moist stone. Something moved on the ground near her, and glided indistinctly forward--perhaps it was a night-swallow or owl.
"It is he," said Ilse, softly. She rose slowly, she trembled, and supported herself against the rock.
The figure of a man stepped out of the white mist; he stopped astonished when he saw a woman standing there.
"Ilse!" called out a clear voice.
"I await you here," she answered, in a low tone. "Stop there, Felix. You find not your wife as you left her. Another has coveted that which is yours; a poisonous breath has passed over me; words have been said to me which no honest woman ought to hear, and I have been looked upon as a bought slave."
"You have escaped from the enemy."