Based on the medieval Danish ballad Hellelil and Hildebrand, the scene shows Hellelil, a noblewoman, and Hildebrand, her loyal bodyguard, in a brief, tender embrace on a stone stair within a castle. They meet for what will be their last farewell before he rides out to confront her father’s wrath, with her seven brothers sent to kill him because he disapproved of their forbidden love, a tragic story in which Hildebrand is eventually slain and Hellelil dies of grief.