only has cast her off, but is in collusion with this
man Gunther, her captor.

Trying by a supreme effort to govern her agitation and anger at
the revelation of this unspeakable baseness, till she shall have
sounded the affair, "A ring I saw upon your finger," she addresses
him; "not to you does it belong; it was torn from me by this man!"
indicating Gunther. "How should you have received the ring from
him?" Siegfried looks reflectively at the ring. Since all trace of
the former Bruennhilde is wiped from his brain, he cannot remember
his parting gift to her of the Ring. Certainly, he wrested a ring
from this woman, in the twilight.... What became of it?... But
the ring on his hand is indisputably a relic of the old days of
the fight with the dragon. "I did not receive the ring from him,"
he replies. She turns to Gunther: "If you took from me the ring,
by which you claimed me for wife, declare to him your right to it,
demand back the token!" Gunther is sore perplexed. "The ring?...
I gave him none.... Are you sure that is the one?" "Where do you
conceal the ring," Bruennhilde presses him, "which you robbed from
me?" Gunther is stupidly silent, not knowing what he should say; his
confusion is so obvious and his blankness so convincingly unassumed,
that the truth is borne upon Bruennhilde: It was not he, despite
all appearances, who took the ring from her, and if not he--"Ha!"
she cries, in a burst of furious indignation, "This is the man
who tore the ring from me; Siegfried, trickster and thief!"

Siegfried has been still gazing at the ring on his hand, trying
to puzzle out points which the lacunae in his memory do not permit
him to make clear. The contemplation has brought back old scenes
and distant events. He speaks, unruffled: "From no woman did I
receive the ring; nor did I take it from any woman. Full well do
I recognise the prize of battle, won by me before Neidhoehle, when
I slew the mighty dragon."

With what quiet and conviction he makes the statement, as if verily
he spoke the truth! Such assurance is hardly imaginable, save as based
upon conscious integrity.... Hagen now, the fisher in troubled waters,
interferes, still further to increase Bruennhilde's bewilderment:
"Are you sure you recognise the ring? If it is the one you gave
to Gunther, it belongs to him, and Siegfried obtained it by some
artifice which the deceiver shall be made to rue!"

Plainly, there is no way of help in clearing up this despera