e forest. She is in a deep
reverie; her heart has spoken, but alas, not for her bridegroom, whom
she now fears; it only beats for Conrad, who has owned his love to her.
Darkness comes on and the gnomes appear with their Queen, who reveals
to the frightened girl the origin of her bridegroom and entreats her to
give back the son to his poor bereft mother. When the gnomes have
disappeared, Conrad overtakes Anna, and she tells him all, asking his
help against her mysterious bridegroom. Conrad, seeing that she
returns his love, is happy. He has just obtained a good situation and
will now be able to wed her.

{124}

He accompanies her home, where Gertrud welcomes them joyously, having
feared that Anna had met with an accident in the forest.

While the lovers are together, Heiling enters, bringing the bridal
jewels. Mother Gertrud is dazzled, but Anna shrinks from her
bridegroom. When he asks for an explanation, she tells him that she
knows of his origin. Then all his hopes die within him, but determined
that his rival shall not be happy at his cost, he hurls his dagger at
Conrad and takes flight.

In the last act Heiling is alone in a ravine in the mountains. He has
sacrificed everything and gained nothing. Sadly he decides to return
to the gnomes. They appear at his bidding, but they make him feel that
he no longer has any power over them, and by way of adding still
further to his sorrows they tell him that his rival lives and is about
to wed Anna. Then indeed all seems lost to the poor dethroned King.
In despair and repentance he casts himself to the earth. But the
gnomes, seeing that he really has abandoned all earthly hopes, swear
fealty to him once more and return with him to their Queen, by whom he
is received with open arms.

Meanwhile Conrad, who only received a slight wound from Heiling's
dagger and has speedily recovered, has fixed his wedding-day and we see
Anna, the happy bride in the midst of her companions, prepared to go to
church with her lover. But when she looks about her, Heiling is at her
{125} side, come to take revenge. Conrad would fain aid her, but his
sword breaks before it touches Heiling, who invokes the help of his
gnomes. They appear, but at the same moment the Queen is seen,
exhorting her son to pardon and to forget. He willingly follows her
away into his kingdom of night and darkness, never to see earth's
surface again. The anxious peasants once more breathe freely and joi