And so his release was effected, and a safe voyage home given. And
once more he sets sail upon the Rhine. The maiden, still watching
beneath the vines, sees at last the object of all this patient love
approach--approach, but not to touch the strand to which she, with
outstretched arms, has rushed. He dares not trust himself to land, but
in low, heart-broken tones, tells her of Heaven's will; and that he,
in obedience to his vow, is now on his way to a convent on the
river-bank, there to pass the rest of his earthly life in the service
of the shrine. And then he turns his boat, and floats away from her
and hope of any happiness in this world, but urged, as he believes, by
the breath of Heaven.

The maiden stands appalled, but she dares not murmur, and cannot
hesitate long. She also bids them prepare her boat. She follows her
lost love to the convent gate, requests an interview with the abbot,
and devotes her Elysian isle, where vines had ripened their ruby fruit
in vain for her, to the service of the monastery where her love was to
serve. Then, passing over to the nunnery opposite, she takes the veil,
and meets her betrothed at the altar; and for a life-long union, if
not the one they had hoped in earlier years.

Is not this sorrowful story of a lofty beauty? Does it not show a
sufficiently high view of Woman, of Marriage? This is commonly the
chivalric, still more the German view.

Yet, wherever there was a balance in the mind of Man, of sentiment
with intellect, such a result was sure. The Greek Xenophon has not
only painted us a sweet picture of the domestic Woman, in his
Economics, but in the Cyropedia has given, in the picture of Panthea,