catching sight of Telramund with a handful of armed men
stealing in by the door behind her husband's back,--the explanation
of the sound she had heard. With a cry of warning, she runs for her
husband's sword and hands it to him. Quickly turning he rewards
Friedrich's ineffectual lunge with a blow that stretches him dead.
The appalled accomplices drop their swords and fall to their knees.
Elsa, who had cast herself against her husband's breast, slides
swooning to the floor. There is a long silence. The Knight stands,
deeply shaken, coming to gradual realisation of the whole sorrowful
situation. All the light, the bridegroom joy, have faded from his
face. With a quiet suggestive of infinite patience and some strange
superiority of strength, some unearthly resource, he considers this
ruin, his audible comment on it a single sigh, more poignant than
if it were less restrained: "Woe! Now is all our happiness over!"
Very gently he lifts Elsa, sufficiently revived to realise that she
has somehow worked irreparable destruction, and decisively places
her away from him. By a sign he orders Telramund's followers to their
feet and bids them carry the dead man to the King's judgment-place.
He rings a bell; the women who appear in answer, he instructs:
"To accompany her before the King, attire Elsa, my sweet wife!
There shall she receive my answer, and learn her husband's name
and state."

At daybreak the Brabantian lords and their men-at-arms are assembling
around the Justice-Oak in readiness to follow the King. The King,
with noble expressions of gratitude for their loyalty, takes command
of them. "But where loiters," he is inquiring, "the one whom God
sent to the glory, the greatness of Brabant?" when a covered bier is
borne before him and set down in the midst of the wondering company,
by men whom they recognise as former retainers of Telramund's. This
is done, explain these last, by order of the Protector of Brabant.

Elsa attended by her ladies appears at the place of gathering.
Her pale and sorrow-struck looks are attributed naturally to the
impending departure of her husband for the field.

Armed in his flashing silver mail, as he was first seen of them,
he now appears on the spot. Cheers greet him from those whom he
is to lead to battle and victory. When their shouts die, he makes,
standing before the King, the startling announcement that he cannot
lead them to battle, the brave heroes he has convoked. "I am not
here