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Twilight has fallen; the guardian fire glows more brightly as the darkness thickens. Of a sudden, the flames leap high, Loge's signal that some one draws near. At the same moment Siegfried's horn is heard, approaching. With the cry: "In my god's arm!" Brünnhilde rushes to meet him. A figure springs from the flames upon a rock, a form foreign to Brünnhilde's eyes. The flames drop back.
Sieglinde wishes to die, but Brünnhilde entreats her to live for the sake of her child that is to be, and giving her the splintered fragments of Siegmund's sword, bids her escape to the forest, where Fafner watches over his treasure. The voice of the wrathful Wotan is now heard in the distance.
Put forth all your valour in the fight!... Have well in mind what I command: Siegmund is to fall! This be the Valkyrie's task!" Brünnhilde gazes after him in wonder and fear as he storms up over the rocky ascent out of sight: "I never saw Sieg-vater like that!" Sadly she resumes her armour, woe-begone at the thought of the Wälsung, given over to death.
The inflammable heart which suffocated him of old at sight of Brünnhilde asleep, now makes his voice falter with instantaneous passion as he exclaims: "You, whose beauty dazzles like lightning, wherefore do you drop your eyes before me?" And when shyly she looks up: "Ha, fairest woman, hide your glance!
Then I should like to have the awakening of Brunnhilde." "That would be lovely," said Georgie. "Have you asked Miss Olga if she will?" "Georgino mio, you don't quite understand," said Lucia. "This party is to be for Miss Bracely. I was her guest last night in spite of the gramophone, and indeed I hope she will find nothing in my house that jars on her as much as her gramophone jarred on me.
Brünnhilde opened her eyes and half kneeling, half reclining, she stared about her, dazed, half conscious. Siegfried hung over her. The flames, the smoke were dying away. She seemed in a trance; and then, as she gazed at the sky and the sunlight, the rocks and the trees, her lips parted suddenly; she raised her arms, half in bewilderment half in ecstasy, stretching them upwards, and began to sing.
When, an hour later, after a tedious colloquy between Brunnhilde and Wotan, this long and disappointing evening came to an end, to the more human strains of the FEUERZAUBER, and they, the last of the gallery-audience to leave, had tramped down the wooden stairs, Maurice's heart leapt to his throat to discover, as they turned the last bend, not only the two Cayhills waiting for them, but also, a little distance further off, Louise.
She is the protectress of marriage rites, and come to complain of Siegmund's unlawful act in carrying off Sieglinde. A long altercation ensues between the pair. In the end Fricka is triumphant. She extorts an oath from Wotan that he will not protect Siegmund, and departs satisfied. Brünnhilde again appears, and another interminable scene follows between her and Wotan.
Siegfried! See, Brünnhilde Joyously hails thee, thy bride." She swings herself upon her steed and dashes into the furious flames. At last they die away, and the Rhine rushes forward from its banks and covers the pyre. The exultant Rhine-daughters are swimming in the flood, for Brünnhilde has thrown them the ring.
Bashful, blushing, tremulous, as different as is well possible from Brünnhilde, Gutrune approaches, holding a filled drinking-horn. "Welcome, guest, in Gibich's house! His daughter offers you drink!" Siegfried holds the cup before him a moment without drinking, his thoughts flying afar. The words come back to him spoken to Brünnhilde at parting. An infinite tenderness invades him.
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