Leave her, Huldbrand! leave him, Bertalda! He still belongs to another; and do you not see on his pale cheek his grief for his lost wife?
That is not the look of a bridegroom; and the spirit says to me, that 'if you do not leave him you will never be happy!'" The three felt in their inmost hearts that Father Heilmann spoke the truth; but they would not believe it.

Even the old fisherman was so infatuated, that he thought it could not be otherwise than as they had latterly settled amongst themselves.

They all, therefore, with a determined and gloomy eagerness, struggled against the representations and warnings of the priest, until, shaking his head and oppressed with sorrow, he finally quitted the castle, not choosing to accept their offered shelter even for a single night, or indeed so much as to taste a morsel of the refreshment they brought him.

Huldbrand persuaded himself, however, that the priest was a mere visionary; and sent at daybreak to a monk of the nearest monastery, who, without scruple, promised to perform the ceremony in a few days..