t the stranger he who spoke to you in the city, the Master of
the fountain?' cried Bertalda fearfully. She would always be afraid of
the man who had told Undine the secret of her birth.

'Fear nothing, dear Bertalda,' said Undine hastily, 'the Master of the
fountain shall not do you harm. I will tell you who he is, and then
you will no longer be afraid. His name is Kuehleborn and he is my
uncle. It was he who carried you away from your mother's arms and put
me there in your place.'

Then, as Bertalda listened with wide open eyes, Undine told her of her
childhood's home in the crystal palace under the blue sea, and of the
free and careless life she had lived in the cottage by the lake. She
told her, too, of the coming of the knight, and of their wedding-day,
when she had won for herself a soul, a gift given to no Undine save
through the power of love.

Bertalda listened to the strange story in silence, but as she listened
she felt a faint feeling of dread creep into her heart. And the
feeling grew and grew until at last it seemed to stand as a wall
between her and the gentle Undine.

At supper that evening she began to be sorry for the knight, who had
married a lady beautiful indeed and good, yet one who seemed to belong
to another world than theirs.

CHAPTER XII

CASTLE RINGSTETTEN

Now as the days passed, a change crept over those who dwelt in the
castle.

Huldbrand saw that Bertalda seemed to shrink away from his beautiful
wife. And when at length he asked her the reason that she no longer
loved Undine so well as she had been used to do, she told him that she
now knew from whence his wife had come. 'And for the spirit world,'
said Bertalda, 'I do not care, for I know it not. It and those who
have dwelt there fill me with fear and dread.'

Little by little the knight himself began to look at his wife with
less loving eyes, little by little he began to shun her presence.

Then Undine, seeing that her husband's love grew less, wept, and the
knight, seeing her tears, would speak kindly to her, yet even as he
spoke he would leave her side to walk with Bertalda.

She, Bertalda, meanwhile grew once more rude and proud, nor could
Undine's patience win her to behave more wisely.

Then in the long dark passages of the old castle, spectres began to
appear to Huldbrand and Bertalda, and worse than any was the tall form
of Kuehleborn, or the Master of the fountain, as the maiden still
called him.

Now one