Are you then so perfectly certain, Knight Huldbrand, that your first wife is really dead?
It scarcely seems so to me.

I will not indeed say anything of the mysterious condition in which she may be existing, and I know, too, nothing of it with certainty.

But she was a pious and faithful wife, that is beyond all doubt; and for a fortnight past she has stood at my bedside at night in my dreams, wringing her tender hands in anguish and sighing out: 'Oh, prevent him, good father! I am still living! oh, save his life! save his soul!' I did not understand what this nightly vision signified; when presently your messenger came, and I hurried thither, not to unite, but to separate, what ought not to be joined together.

Leave her, Huldbrand! Leave him, Bertalda! He yet belongs to another; and do you not see grief for his lost wife still written on his pale cheek?
No bridegroom looks thus, and a voice tells me that if you do not leave him, you will never be happy." The three listeners felt in their innermost heart that Father Heilmann spoke the truth, but they would not believe it.

Even the old fisherman was now so infatuated that he thought it could not be otherwise than they had settled it in their discussions during the last few days.