At Castle Liebenstein Conrad and Heinrich - brothers- both love Hildegarde. She was very beautiful. Heinrich generously refuses to marry the beautiful Hildegarde, and goes away to the Crusades, leaving her to his brother Conrad. Conrad considers the matter for a year or two, and then HE decides that he won't marry her either, but will leave her for his brother Heinrich, and HE goes off to the Crusades, from whence he returns, a few years later with a Grecian bride. The beautiful H., muddled between the pair of them, and the victim of too much generosity, gets sulky (don't blame her), and shuts herself up in a lonely part of the castle, and won't see anybody for years. Chivalrous Heinrich returns, and is wild that his brother C. has not married the beautiful H. It does not occur to him to marry the girl even then. The feverish yearning displayed by each of these two brothers, that the other one should marry the beloved Hildegarde, is very touching. Heinrich draws his sword, and throws himself upon his brother C. to kill him. The beautiful Hildegarde, however, throws herself between them and reconciles them, and then, convinced that neither of them means business, and naturally disgusted with the whole affair, retires into a nunnery. Conrad's Grecian bride subsequently throws herself away on another man, upon which Conrad throws himself on his brother H.'s breast, and they swear eternal friendship. Hildegarde leaves the nunnery, returns to Castle Liebenstein, expires, and haunts it even now in continued disgust.