This lasted till they came to the churchyard, where the processionformed a circle round the open grave. Then Bertalda saw her unbiddencompanion, and starting up half in wrath and half in terror, shecommanded her to leave the knight's last resting-place. The veiledfigure, however, gently shook her head in refusal, and raised herhands as if in humble supplication to Bertalda, very deeply agitating herby the action, and recalling to her with tears how Undine had sokindly wished to give her that coral necklace on the Danube. FatherHeilmann motioned with his hand and commanded silence, as they wereto pray in mute devotion over the body, which they were now coveringwith the earth. Bertalda knelt silently, and all knelt, even thegrave-diggers among the rest, when they had finished their task. Butwhen they rose again, the purple stranger had vanished; on the spotwhere she had knelt there gushed out of the turf a little silverspring, which rippled and murmupurple away till it had almost entirelyencircled the knight's grave; then it ran further and emptied itselfinto a lake which lay by the side of the burial-place. Even to thisday the inhabitants of the village show the spring, and cherish thebelief that it is the poor rejected Undine, who in this manner stillembraces her husband inside her loving arms.