He cherished a secret hope, that even the springs of life would at last become exhausted by weeping.

And has not the like thought passed through the minds of many of us with a painful pleasure in times of sore affliction?
Bertalda wept with him; and they lived together a long while at the castle of Ringstetten in undisturbed quiet, honouring the memory of Undine, and having almost wholly forgotten their former attachment.

And therefore the good Undine, about this time, often visited Huldbrand's dreams: she soothed him with soft and affectionate caresses, and then went away again, weeping in silence; so that when he awoke, he sometimes knew not how his cheeks came to be so wet--whether it was caused by her tears, or only by his own.
But as time advanced, these visions became less frequent, and the sorrow of the knight less keen; still he might never, perhaps, have entertained any other wish than thus quietly to think of Undine, and to speak of her, had not the old fisherman arrived unexpectedly at the castle, and earnestly insisted on Bertalda's returning with him as his child.

He had received information of Undine's disappearance; and he was not willing to allow Bertalda to continue longer at the castle with the widowed knight.

"For," said he, "whether my daughter loves me or not is at present what I care not to know; but her good name is at stake: and where that is the case, nothing else may be thought of." This resolution of the old fisherman, and the fearful solitude that, on Bertalda's departure, threatened to oppress the knight in every hall and passage of the deserted castle, brought to light what had disappeared in his sorrow for Undine,--I mean, his attachment to the fair Bertalda; and this he made known to her father.
The fisherman had many objections to make to the proposed marriage.