The Hero started back; his cheeks grew pale, but his look was cold, as he answered: "Didst thou think, oh Queen, that thou shouldst become more dear to my heart, if upon my account thou didst burden thy life with a terrible deed?"

"Why dost thou fix thine eyes like stone upon me?" shrieked out Gisela. She seized his arm, and shook it. "We two, thou and I, can not live near one another on this man's earth, if thou dost not follow me."

The Hero released himself angrily from her hand. "If thou hast, by secret night-work, heaped upon my head the anger of the revenging gods, I am ready to pay the penalty --- but free from thee, not as a servant bound to thy life."

The Queen looked sharply in his face; she raised her arm slowly, and clenched her hand threateningly.

"The wands are thrown, on which the Weird Sisters have marked thy fate and mine. Thou hast chosen, Ingo, and the token that thou has found signifies danger." She turned away, with a convulsive movement; but her eyes remained tearless, and her countenance was stony, as, pointing to the setting sun, she said, half aloud: "Tomorrow!"

Quickly she went to the horses. Ingo flung the royal mantle down the mountain with his foot, and sprang up the path along which Irmgard had gone, to his house.