"Yes, yes!"
"Shall you always love me?"
"Always! Always! And you--you will never again leave me alone like to-day so that Martin--"
Abruptly she stops short. Silence weighs upon them! What terrible silence! The big drum drones in the distance. The waters roar.
Two deathly pale faces gaze at each other.
And now she screams aloud. "Oh Lord, my God!" is the cry which resounds through the night.
Loudly moaning, he covers his face with his hands. Tearless sobs shake his frame. Before his eyes everything is aflame--aflame with a blood-red light as if the whole world were set on fire. Now it is all suddenly made clear as day to him! What dawned mysteriously within him in yonder midsummer night, what flashed like lightning through his brain on that evening when Trude broke down sobbing in the middle of her song--all now arises before him like a glowing ball of fire. Every flame speaks of hate; every ray flashes with torturing jealousy through his soul, every gleam pierces his heart with fear and guilty consciousness.
Trude has thrown herself face downwards upon the ground, and is weeping--weeping bitterly.
With bowed head and folded hands he gazes upon her fair form, lying before him in an agony of woe.
"Come home," he says tonelessly. She lifts her head and plants her arms firmly upon the ground; but when he attempts to help her up, she screams out: "Do not touch me!" Twice, thrice, she endeavors to stand upright, but again and again she breaks down. Then without a word she stretches forth her arms, and suffers herself to be drawn up by him. In silence he guides her feeble steps to the mill. Her tears are dried up. The rigidness of despair has settled upon her deathly pale features. She keeps her face averted and resistingly allows him to drag her along. Before the threshold of the veranda she loosens her arm from his, and, with what little strength is left to her, she darts away from him towards the house-door. Her figure disappears among the dark foliage.