k of
you. High duty commands it!"--"What high duty? Is it not a higher
duty still to observe that which you once swore to me,--eternal
constancy?"--"What?..." she cries, in utmost dismay; "You say that
I swore eternal constancy to you?"--"Oh, Senta," he goes on, subdued
by her shocked amazement, sorrowfully to explain the simple rhetoric
of his misstatement, "will you deny it? Do you refuse to remember
that day when you called me to you in the valley? When in order to
gather the upland flowers for you I endured dangers and labours
innumerable? Do you remember how from the steep rocks on the shore
we watched your father departing? He sailed upon the white-winged
ship, and confided you to my care. When your arm encircled my neck,
did you not own once more your love for me? That which thrilled me
at the pressure of your hand, tell me, was it not the assurance
of your constancy?"

Unseen of the two, for the moment so absorbed in each other, the
Hollander has come from the house. He has been standing near enough
to overhear Erik's last sentences; the significance of these seems
scarcely ambiguous, his inference is natural. It is a lovers' meeting
which he has chanced upon. Whatever her reasons for accepting him,
the Hollander,--it is clear that this young huntsman has a claim on
the girl who declared so glibly that the law of truth was written
in her soul.

The two are interrupted by a wail. "Lost! Oh, lost! To all eternity
lost!" They turn and start in horror at sight of the Hollander.
"Farewell, Senta," he cries, and with the precipitation of despair
is making straight for the boundless deep. Senta throws herself
across his path. "Stay, O unfortunate!" But the Hollander pushes
past. "To sea! To sea! To sea until the end of time!--It is at an
end with your truth! At an end with your truth and my salvation!
Farewell, I would not bring about your ruin!" Erik, catching sight
of his face, the face of a lost soul, shudders at the measureless
woe in his eyes. "Stay," Senta implores, "stay, you shall never
depart!" Disregarding her, the Hollander blows a shrill note on
his whistle and shouts to his crew: "Hoist sail! Lift anchor! For
ever and ever bid farewell to the land!"

There is struggle for a long moment among the three: hers to prevent
the Hollander; Erik's to keep back her, caught, as he believes, in
the claws of Satan; the Hollander's to leave. Since her faith is
turned to mockery, he, forced to doubt her, has fallen