"God of Heaven!" said Eckbert, muttering to himself; "in what frightful solitude have I passed my life?"
"And Bertha was thy sister."
Eckbert sank to the ground.
"Why did she leave me deceitfully? All would have been fair and well; her time of trial was already finished. She was the daughter of a knight, who had her nursed in a shepherd's house; the daughter of thy father."
"Why have I always had a forecast of this dreadful thought?" cried Eckbert.
"Because in early youth thy father told thee: he could not keep this daughter by him for his second wife, her stepmother."
Eckbert lay distracted and dying on the ground. Faint and bewildered, he heard the old woman speaking, the dog barking, the bird repeating its song.