Greif sprang to his feet and seized Hilda by the wrist, his eyes and his whole expression full of horror and dismay.
‘What have you done?’ he cried. ‘What you could not do,’ answered Hilda boldly.
The colour had come back to her face, and the light to her eyes, and she met his gaze calmly and courageously. For some seconds neither moved, but stood looking at each other, he holding her tightly, she making no effort at resistance. Greif’s first impression was that his wife had committed an act of sacrilege as well as a serious offence against the law. She had explained her meaning clearly enough when she tore up the letter, and he had understood all the consequences of the act at once. It would be useless to attempt a search for the fragments of paper, which were already scattered on the breeze and floating down to the deep gorge. So far as the law was concerned, Hilda had spoken the truth. Not a shred of evidence remained to prove that he was not all to-day that he had been yesterday, in law as well as in fact. But there was gone with that evidence something precious to Greif, something which it had hurt him desperately to see torn to scraps and flung away. He had loved his father with all his heart, and the letter had contained his father’s last solemn blessing, of which not a single word remained whole; not even if one of those bits of floating paper that whirled and floated down the precipice had preserved a syllable of the message, was it in the power of human skill or strength to save it from reaching the bottom of the abyss and being swept away to the distant river by the tumbling stream.
Nevertheless Hilda’s quick and decisive action had produced the effect of a salutary shock upon her husband’s mind and nerves. She, as usual, felt that absolute certainty of having done right which was a part of her strong character. ‘You have destroyed it all,’ said Greif at last in a reproachful tone. ‘You have left no two words together—’
‘And I am glad. I would do it again, if need were.’
‘It cannot be undone,’ Greif answered gloomily. He dropped her wrist and began to walk slowly backwards and forwards in the shadow of the tower.
‘How could you do it! How could you do it!’ he repeated in a low voice, as though speaking to himself and without looking at her.
‘It was the only thing to be done,’ she answered firmly.
‘But the injustice of it—the illegality—what shall I call it?’ he stopped in his walk.
‘Call it what you please,’ replied Hilda scornfully. ‘It does not exist any more. It may not have been a legal act, but it was an act of justice, whatever you may say; of the truest justice, and I would do it again.’
‘Justice!’ exclaimed Greif bitterly. ‘If justice were done, I should be—’
‘Stop,’ said Hilda in a determined tone. ‘Justice is done and you are here, and you are what you were yesterday and shall be to-morrow, not for me only, but for the whole world. That is the only justice I can understand.’
‘Hilda, it is wrong,’ cried Greif. ‘I know it is. I have no right to throw off what has been brought upon me, what is proved so clearly—it is a wrong and a great wrong, and it must be repaired.’
‘A wrong to whom?’ Hilda asked, with flashing eyes. ‘Whose would your fortune be if you renounced it for the sake of that thing I have destroyed? It would be my mother’s—mine, would it not? The letter said so. And the name of Greifenstein, to whom would it go, if you proclaimed through the whole land that you had no right to it? To no one. It would end. No one would ever bear it, for no one has a right to dispose of it except, perhaps, my mother—’
‘Yes—your mother—’
‘My mother! Would you break her heart by telling her that she has given my father’s name to—’
Hilda stopped short in her speech.
‘To me!’ exclaimed Greif in the bitterest self-reproach. ‘Oh, the shame of it, Hilda, the shame of it all! You are right in that—to think that she has given the name she loves to one who has no right to any name—it would break her heart—’
‘Then let her never know it, nor guess it, nor dream that it is possible, never, never, so long as she lives!’
‘It is not for her only—it is for you, Hilda! That is the worst to bear—the shame, the shame!’
‘For me?’ The two words came slowly and distinctly from her lips, as though she were trying to make clear to him the enormity of his speech. Then she drew herself up proudly to her full height, and a wonderful smile illuminated her face.
‘Not for me, Greif,’ she said. ‘There is no shame for me. In your love, I am above all earthly shame.’
There was something in her manner and in the accent of her speech that affected Greif very suddenly. He was gradually growing more calm and better able to reason, as well as to realise the splendid depth of his wife’s love. There was a ring in her voice that told him more than her words could tell. He came to her, and took her hand, and kissed it, almost devotionally.
‘You are above all earthly women,’ he said simply.
‘I? No. Any woman would do as much, and it is so little. If you would only think, dear, it is so very little—and it is for myself, too. Could I do anything else? Could any woman do less, even the most selfish?’
‘I know none who would do as much,’ Greif answered.
‘Did I not tell you, that it was for my own sake that I destroyed the letter, that I would not be dishonoured, that I would not have the world say—what it might say?’
‘That is not all, Hilda.’
‘It is all—except my love, and that is all indeed, all there is for me.’
‘Ay, that is it, that is it! And if these hideous crimes are never known to any one but you and me, can you live beside me, day by day, year by year, and never feel one pang, one regret, one little thrust of shame? I know you love me, but that is too much to ask of any love. I know that you mean what you say, but it is too much for man or woman to say and mean. Think of it, Hilda, think of it all—there are such things here as angels could not forget!’
‘I love you very, very much—my memory has no place for any other things.’
She twined her arm about his neck as they stood together, and she laid her golden head upon his shoulder, while her bright eyes looked upwards with a sidelong glance into his face. But his cheek was pale and cold, and he gazed sternly out at the distant crags, as though he would not see her. The unbearable conviction of disgrace was upon him, hopeless, endless, embracing all his existence and already extending back in his imagination to all his earlier youth. Her hands burned him, her touch was like the shock of death, as the old mystics used to say the draught of life would be to the lips of the unprepared and the impure.
‘Let me go,’ he said gently. ‘I cannot bear it.’
But she would not. Instead of one arm, both went round him. He felt as if her strong embrace would lift him from his feet, out of himself, to bear him away from all trouble and woe to endless peace.
‘I will not let you go—neither now nor ever, neither in this world nor the next.’
He knew that tone of hers, deep, ringing and clear, and he knew that she was desperate. Then the conflict began in his own soul, the struggle between that deep conviction of law and right, which was the foundation of his character, and that honest and all-sacrificing love that filled his heart.
‘Give me time to think what I am doing,’ he said.
He sat down upon the seat in his old place and bent down, pressing his temples with his hands. He had spoken very simply out of his great distress, for he needed time to think of what he was doing, and of what he must yet do. All was vague and moving in the vision of his mind, like a distant landscape seen through the trembling, heated air at noontide on a summer’s day. Nothing was distinct, save his love for Hilda on the one side, and upon the other, the black shadow of his awful disgrace.
‘Think, my beloved, if you will,’ said Hilda softly. ‘You will but think what I have thought already.’
Perhaps he felt, even then, that she was right, but he could not so soon be comforted, nor put aside in a moment what had presented itself so strongly as an inexorable duty. At that juncture a cunning man of law could have persuaded him more easily than the woman he loved more than all the world besides. As had happened before, in the old days, that love appeared to him in the light of a temptation, beautiful as the broad sun, eloquent as sweetest music. But there was this difference, now, that the opposite course was not as plain as it had been then. Instead of a straight path, he saw but a confused medley of conflicting ideas, of which the whole sum represented to his mind a mysterious notion of a necessary sacrifice, but in which it was impossible to distinguish the discriminating point, the centre of action, the goal of duty. In the first place, he recognised out of this chaos, his father’s injunction to act like a Christian man, to give up all that was not his, to lay aside the name he had borne and to go forth into the world with nothing but his own courage and perseverance as his weapons. That was clear enough. If the letter had come into his hands immediately, as it had been intended that it should, he would have fulfilled his father’s last commands bravely in every detail of their spirit. Even if he had received the message on the eve of his marriage, after he had begun to call himself Sigmundskron, even then he would have done the same; and though it would have been mortal agony, it would have been easy to do, so far as the mere execution of it was concerned. He would have gone to Frau von Sigmundskron, and would have told her the truth, showing her the letter, and taking the consequences. No woman alive, in such a case, would have hesitated a moment, he thought. Hilda’s mother would certainly not have had the least doubt how to act, for she would have died rather than give her daughter to a man of illegitimate birth. She would have offered him his fortune, no doubt, for she was a noble and generous woman, but he would have refused to take anything. That at least would not have cost him a pang. As for the rest, his course would have been clear enough.
But now, it was a very different matter. His conscience still told him to go to Frau von Sigmundskron and tell all, but the consideration of the consequences appalled him. He knew better even than Hilda herself, what a sacrifice the good lady had made in regard to the name, and what importance she attached to it. She was perfectly happy in the existing condition of things; to tell her would be to destroy her happiness for ever, to the last day of her life. Greif felt that if he were in her place he should not want to know the truth, since all reparation was now utterly impossible. And yet, to conceal it looked like a crime, or at least like an action of bad faith. Could he meet the white-haired lady who loved him so well and who had built such hopes upon him, could he meet her daily, and call her mother, as she loved to be called, and yet feel that he was deceiving her, that he had defiled the name she had given him, and that he was living in possession of all that the law made hers? It might be true that all would be Hilda’s some day, and that in the end no harm would be effected because it would go to Hilda’s son. But the fortune was not Hilda’s yet, and she to whom it really belonged, who had really the power to control all, and to turn Greif and her own daughter from home and hearth if she pleased, was to all intents dependent upon the generosity of both. Though she might be made to accept much, yet it seemed a positive wrong that she should be allowed to feel that she was receiving favours when she was in reality conferring them.
Greif therefore should go to her, and tell his story, and acknowledge that everything was hers and that he was beholden to her charity for the bread he ate at her table. He had the courage to do so, and he would do it, if it seemed wholly right. But if he thus satisfied his love of justice, he must also do her an injury of a very different kind. It would be cruel to disclose the truth. Even Hilda had said that it would break her mother’s heart if she were told that she had given what she most prized to a nameless bastard. Hilda had not said the word, but it had been in her mind, nevertheless. And Frau von Sigmundskron had given more than that, for she had bestowed upon him her only daughter. Should he make her declining years miserable with the shame that was upon him, in order to give her money, or should he keep what was hers in order that she might end her life in happiness and peace? It was a case of doing evil that good might come.
When such a question arises there can be but one answer. The good to be obtained must be immense and the evil must be relatively very small. If such a position could be imagined, a man would be justified in lying, stealing, or doing almost anything which could only hurt himself, for the sake of saving a nation, of preserving his country from destruction. Perhaps he would not be wrong, if it were to save a thousand innocent lives, a hundred, ten, even one, if he wronged only himself in the evil he did to attain his end. But as the ratio diminishes, the case becomes manifestly more difficult to judge, and the absolute nature of right asserts itself more strongly when it is not confronted by overwhelming odds in most exceptional circumstances. Stealing is bad, but there is a difference between the case of the starving mother who steals a crust for her dying child, and the professional thief who lives riotously upon the proceeds of his crimes; there is a difference of degree in evil between stealing money in order to render possible the escape of a beloved sovereign from the hands of a bloodthirsty and revolutionary mob, and stealing it, under the apparent protection of the law, by deceiving thousands in the game of finance.
Nothing can be more repugnant to a man of honour than to do evil of any sort in order that good may come. To such a man as Greif, lying is but a shade less bad than murder, and stealing is many shades worse. In his judgment of the situation he was called upon both to steal and to lie, in order to secure Frau von Sigmundskron’s happiness. It was true that the deception was to be practised by merely holding his tongue, and the theft by keeping what did not belong to him, but Greif made no such subtle distinctions of degree. It was lying and stealing. It was adding a disgrace by his own conduct to the shame he had inherited. It was to give up all that remained to him, which was his spotless honesty in thought and deed. The case seemed terribly strong.
There was Hilda, by his side, and she had said that she would not let him go. Suppose then that he went and told her mother the story. There would be one more person in the secret, for though she might die of grief, she would never tell a human being; she could not ever be called upon to do so, by the maddest exaggeration of the principles of honour. She would suffer horribly, but she would not take what was hers. She could have no use for the fortune, except to give it to her daughter, who had the use of it already. Her peace would be destroyed for ever, and there would be no change in the conditions under which the three were living, except that Greif would have satisfied his desire to be strictly honest. A moral satisfaction on the one hand, and the destruction of all happiness to one he loved on the other. His brain reeled, for his desire to be truthful suddenly appeared to him in the light of a selfish passion which would cause endless pain to those whom he most desired to shield from all suffering. This was another view, and a strangely unexpected one.
The chaos of his thoughts became wilder and more unsettled than ever, he dropped his hands upon his knees and leaned back against the rough stones of the tower, pale and exhausted with the struggle, but uncertain yet how he should act. Hilda sat motionless beside him, watching his movements, and to some extent understanding his thoughts, ready to give him her sympathy or her counsel, if he needed it, ready, too, to throw all the force of her undaunted nature into the contest if he should endeavour to maintain his first position. She was, indeed, terribly anxious, lest in a moment of excitement he should break away from her and go to her mother in his present frame of mind. A long time had passed in silence, far longer than it has taken to describe the thoughts that succeeded each other in Greif’s brain, but Hilda would not speak, nor interrupt the course of his reflexions. She knew that this was the decisive moment of their lives, and she understood her husband’s stubbornly honourable nature well enough to give him leisure to consider all the points of his position.
At last he spoke, not looking at her and still leaning his head against the stones.
‘It is hard to talk of it,’ he said. ‘And yet I must, for I cannot think without words. I must decide, and quickly. In another hour I may meet your mother. I must either tell her, or not tell her, and this must be final. If I do—’
‘She will die,’ interrupted Hilda. ‘Not to-day, not to-morrow, perhaps not this year. But it will eat up her heart. I know her. She will spend hours in her room, alone, looking at my father’s picture, and crying over his sword. All her dreams will go out, like a light extinguished in the dark, All her hopes will be broken to pieces. She will never feel again that you are a son to her, and that through you the Sigmundskrons have begun again. She will grow more silent, more thin and wan until the end; and then she will die. That is what will happen if you tell her.’
‘And why should not all that happen to you, who know?’ asked Greif.
‘Because I love you yourself, and not an idea,’ answered Hilda. ‘If you were taken from me, I should die, as my mother will if you kill the idea she loves.’
‘And is it better that my whole life should be a lie from this day forth, than that she should know the truth, and do what she can to meet it?’
‘To whom do you owe the truth, Greif? To the woman you have married, to the mother of your child, or to some one else? What good would she get by it? Your money? She does not want money. What is money to her, compared with the memory of him she loved, as I love you, or in comparison with the honour of his name, for which she would give her blood?’
‘And if you had left me alone to read that letter—would you have had me keep the truth from you too?’
‘Would I have you bear alone anything that we can bear together? If you understand my love so little as to think that such a thing could change it, or weaken it, or make me what I am not—why then, I would not care what you did, nor what became of me!’
‘And my shame is nothing to you?’
‘Nothing, being what it is, not yours, but of others, thrust upon your innocence.’
‘You would not, for your own sake, wish that we had never known of it?’
‘For my sake? No. For yours—I would die to wash it out. For my sake, do you say? Oh, Greif, is one hair of your head, one look of your dear eyes less wholly mine, because your mother sinned? Are you not Greif to me, always, and nothing else?’
‘And so you love me still—just as you did before?’
‘Can I say more than I have said? Can I do more than I have done? Ah—then love must be too cold a word for what I mean!’
‘You would not love me if I lied, and were a coward.’
‘You would not be Greif.’
‘Nor should I be my miserable self, if I acted this lie before your mother!’
‘You would not be Greif, if you could kill her with the vanity of selfish truth-telling.’
‘The vanity! Ay, I have thought of that. Perhaps I am vain, after all—I, who have but little left to be proud of.’
His head sank on his breast, and he sighed bitterly, wringing his fingers together. He wished he could shed tears, and cry aloud, and faint, as some women do.
‘And yet—you have me—not to be proud of, but to love,’ said Hilda gently.
‘In spite of all! Is it really true, quite true?’ He shook his head doubtfully.
‘It is true.’
Hilda had no words left with which to persuade him of her unfaltering love, but perhaps at that moment the simple little phrase, with the accent she gave it, told Greif more than many protestations. It seemed to him that the course of his distress was checked suddenly, and that he felt the strain of the cable upon the firm anchor at last. It was the hour of destiny, when one word decides the future of many lives, for good or evil.
‘Thank God!’ Greif exclaimed in a low voice. He put out his hand and took hers. ‘I will never ask you again, dear,’ he said presently. ‘It was hard to believe, it seemed as though I ought not to believe it.’
In spite of all, there was a happy light in his eyes, as he turned them to her and gazed into her face. After all, the terrible things told in the letter had happened long ago, and he was young, in the midst of a glorious present, in the very midst of all that love and happiness could give. It would be many a long year before he could think calmly of the hideous secret, and perhaps his whole life from that day would be more thoughtful and serious than it had been. But it was not in the power of an evil fate to follow him further than that. The curse of the Greifensteins, as people a hundred years ago would have called that strange chain of circumstances in which his race had been involved, had run its course, and had spent itself in the conflict with a woman’s love. Beyond that there was nothing but the smooth haven of rest, which no blast of evil could ruffle, and into which no overwhelming wave of calamity could break.
Greif scarcely knew how it was that the struggle ended, nor why, when it was over, he felt that he had not lost the day. But nevertheless, it was so, and peace descended upon his soul. For a long time neither he nor Hilda spoke. Very gradually, the colour returned to Greif’s face, and the light to his eyes; very gradually the luminous veil of his happiness descended between him and the shades of the evil dead, not cutting off the memory of their deeds, but hiding the horror of their presence.
‘And so Rex is my brother,’ he said at last.
‘And mine,’ said Hilda.
‘He does not know—or does he?’
‘How could he?’
‘His father wrote to him—was that letter lost too? Is that yet to come?’ Greif’s heart sank at the thought that all was not over yet.
‘But if he had known,’ said Hilda, ‘could he have hidden it so long? And besides, he came with you. If there had been a letter to him, you would have known of it. Who could have given it to him, without your knowledge?’
‘Your mother.’
‘She never told me of it, though she often wondered that you had nothing.’
‘Rex knows!’ exclaimed Greif in a tone of conviction. ‘And he received the letter. I have told you how it was that he confessed to me his real name. He was telling the truth then, for I know him well. He would as soon have told me that he was my brother as my cousin—’
‘He would have hesitated to do that—’
‘No. You do not know him. He does not value his life a straw, and would as soon have taken that opportunity of parting with it as any other.’
‘But how could he have concealed it since? Why should my mother have never told us that his father wrote?’
‘Because she felt that I should have been pained to think that Rex had received something and I nothing. It is as clear as day. It explains many things. No one but a brother could have acted as he did all through my illness. I have often seen him looking at me strangely, and I never understood what it meant until now. He knew, and I did not. Besides—’
‘What?’ asked Hilda, as he stopped short.
‘Well, it would explain, too, why he was so anxious that you and I should be married. If he knew—and he did, I am sure—he saw that if I persisted he would have to tell me the truth, in order that you should have the fortune. I used to wonder why he pressed me so.’ ‘Do you think that was it?’
‘What else could he do? He must have ruined me, his brother, if the marriage had not taken place.’
‘Would he have done that?’ asked Hilda.
‘Rex believes in nothing but honour,’ Greif answered thoughtfully. ‘There is nothing in heaven or earth which could keep him from doing what he thinks honourable. He would ruin me or himself with perfect indifference rather than see an injustice done by the fault of either.’
‘He is a strange man.’
‘He is a grand man, noble in every part of him, splendidly unselfish, magnificently brave—I wish I were like him.’
‘I should not love you. He is cold as stone, though he may be all that you say, and though I am very fond of him.’
‘Yes—he is cold. He never loved a woman in his life. But I admire him and respect him, though I never quite understand him. There is always something that escapes me, something beyond my reach. Perhaps that is what they call genius.’
‘And yet no one has heard of him. He has never done anything with his talent. It is strange, too, for he is immensely wise. I wonder what the reason can be.’
‘He does not believe in anything—not even in greatness.’ answered Greif. ‘I believe his mind is so large that the greatest things seem little to him. I have heard him talk about almost everything at one time or another. The end of all his arguments is that nothing is worth while. And there is a reason, too. His father’s disgrace has pursued him since he was a child.’
Greif’s voice fell suddenly, and his face grew dark.
‘And what should I be, then!’ he exclaimed a moment later.
‘What he is, were you in his place.’ Hilda answered. ‘But you are not, you see.’
‘But for you, Hilda, but for you.’
‘You for me, and I for you, my beloved. That is what love means.’
Their hearts were too full for either of them to speak much so soon as they approached the question which had so nearly destroyed all their happiness. For a long time they were silent, unconscious of the swift flight of the hours, little guessing what a strange drama was being enacted almost beneath their feet, in the solitary room where Rex had determined to lay down the burden of life in the cause of honour.
‘I must go to him.’ said Greif at last.
‘To Rex?’
‘Yes. I must know how much he knows—though I am sure he knows all.’
‘Will you tell him if he does not know?’
‘Shall I?’
‘He is your brother. He will see it as I do. It is best that he should know.’
‘Come then, dear,’ said Greif rising from his seat.
‘Shall I go with you?’
‘I will bring him out of his room, if he is there, and you can wait a moment in the passage. If not, we will go on together and find him.’
‘It is twelve o’clock!’ exclaimed Hilda, glancing up at the great dial in the tower as she rose.
‘It has not struck yet,’ answered Greif carelessly.
They entered the winding staircase together and went down.
Rex’s room was situated in the upper story of the castle, at no great distance from the staircase through which Greif and Hilda descended. Greif knocked and opened the door almost simultaneously, not waiting for permission to enter. Hilda stood in the corridor outside.
With a sharp exclamation Greif sprang forward. Fortunately, his presence of mind did not forsake him, and he did not hesitate an instant. Before Rex could pull the trigger of his revolver, Greif had grappled with him and was trying to wrest the weapon from his grasp. It was an even match, or very nearly so. Neither spoke a word while they both twisted and wrenched and strained for the mastery. Greif’s superior height gave him some advantage, but Rex was compactly built and very strong.
Very probably, if Greif had made a less sudden entry, Rex would have laid the pistol down with all his usual calm, and would have postponed his intention until he had got his brother out of the room. But Greif had sprung upon him very unexpectedly, and Rex knew instantly that he was detected in his purpose, and must either execute it now or give it up, and resign himself to being treated like a madman, and watched by lynx-eyed keepers day and night.
Hilda, who heard the noise of the scuffle, but had no idea that such a contest was taking place, approached the open door, supposing from the sound of shuffling feet that the two men were hunting some animal that had got into the room. Just as she stood before the threshold, and caught sight of Greif and Rex wrestling for life, Greif to take the pistol, Rex to put it to his own head, she heard a low, angry voice which she did not recognise. It was more like the growl of an angry wild beast than anything else. Rex was not getting the better in the fight, though he had not lost much. His object was to bring the muzzle of his revolver against his own head, while Greif was doing his utmost to prevent the movement.
‘Let me go!’ exclaimed Rex in deep, vibrating tones. ‘Let me go, man—I love your wife, and I mean to die!’
With a violent effort he twisted his hand upwards, lowering his head as much as he could at the same moment. As the charge exploded, the bullet went crashing through the mirror, and the weapon was wrenched away by other hands than Greif’s, whiter and smaller, but scarcely less strong. Hilda had seen the danger and had joined in the struggle at the critical moment, just in time to save Rex from a dangerous wound, if not from actual death. She had got possession of the chief object of contention, not without risk of being injured herself.
Rex’s efforts ceased almost immediately. Between his anger at having been forced to relinquish his intention and his profound horror at seeing Hilda at his side almost at the moment when he had said that he loved her, Rex had no strength left. Only a supreme struggle, at once moral and physical, could have forced from his lips the words he had spoken. For a few seconds only his presence of mind failed him. Then the superiority of his nature over ordinary mankind asserted itself. He gently pushed Greif’s hands away, and drew back a step in the direction of the door.
‘You know my secret now,’ he said, with a quiet dignity that was almost beautiful to see. ‘I ask but the favour of being left alone.’
‘I will not leave you for an instant—’ Greif began, but Hilda interrupted him and passed him quickly.
She came to Rex and laid one hand upon his shoulder, and looked into his eyes.
‘Do you love me? Is it true?’ she asked earnestly, while Greif looked on amazed.
‘But for your hand, I should have died with the confession on my lips,’ Rex answered. ‘I love you, yes.’
‘Then live, for my sake!’ said Hilda, holding out the hand that had saved him.
‘For your sake?’ Rex repeated the words as though scarcely understanding them.
‘For my sake and for his,’ Hilda answered, pointing to Greif.
‘With that sin against him in my heart? No. I will not. It would be but a traitor’s life, a dog’s life. I will not.’
‘You shall, and you will!’ said Hilda, with that grand conviction of power she had shown more than once during her life.
‘Only a man who has tried to die is worthy to live in such a case. Do you know what my husband is to you?’
‘I know it better than he. I have known it long.’
‘Not better than he, or than I. We have learnt the secret today.’
‘You know!’ exclaimed Rex in great surprise. ‘Look at those ashes, there upon the floor—they are all I have left of it—and you know! No—you cannot, it is impossible—’
‘We know that you are brothers,’ said Hilda, taking his hand in spite of him. ‘There is no secret any more, between us three—’
‘And you know that I love you, that I love my brother’s wife, and you would have me live?’
‘Yes,’ said Greif, who had not spoken yet. ‘I would have you live, through all our lives, and I would have you two love each other with all your hearts, as I love you both.’
Rex stared at him, and then at Hilda. He raised one hand, and passed it over his eyes.
‘I do not understand,’ he said, in a low voice.
‘It is because I understand, that I speak as I do,’ Greif answered earnestly. ‘It is because I know that not a nobler man than you breathes in the world. It is because there is but one Hilda in the earth, and she is mine, as I am hers.’
‘You are not human, my brother,’ said Rex. ‘You should wish me dead.’
‘If you were any other man but Rex, I might. Being what you are, I wish that we three may never part.’
‘Never!’ exclaimed Hilda. ‘Ah, Horst, do you not see that you are my brother, too? Do you not feel that I am your sister—and should brothers and sisters such as we are be made to part?’
‘I cannot tell,’ Rex answered. ‘If you would have me live, I can but give you what life is left in me. You know me now. You know what I only learned of myself last night, and what I would have taken to the grave, unknown to any one, to-day. If in your eyes I am so far less base than in my own, if you can look upon me and not loathe me, if you can think of me and not call me traitor, why then this life is yours. And yet, I wonder that you can, seeing that I am what I am. Would you know how it came? You may know if you will, there is less shame to me in that than in the rest. I loved in a dream. I made myself the father of this Hilda in my shadowy visions; I made in my thoughts a mother for her, like her, dead long ago, whom I had loved. I talked with a shadow, I loved a shadow, and the unreal phantasm I loved grew to be like Hilda herself—so like that when I saw they were the same, last night, here upon this very spot, I knew that I must die and quickly. The shadow was the living wife of him for whom I would give all, of my only friend, of my only kinsman, of my only brother. And so, if you had not hindered me, I should have been but a shadow now, myself. It had been best, perhaps. But my life is yours, do with it what you will. It is yours in all honour, such as it is. It was not to escape from torment that I would have died; it was not because I feared by word or deed to break the seal and to show you what was in me. It was to rid my brother and the world of a wretch who had no claim to live.’
‘More right than I, or many a better man than I am,’ said Greif, laying his hand upon his brother’s shoulder.
‘Be wise, Greif,’ answered Rex. ‘Think well of what is to come. Think well whether you can trust me and trust yourself. For me—I care little. A touch of the finger, a little noise, and you would be rid of me for ever. There is a safety in death, which life cannot give.’
‘Do not talk any more of death, dear Horst,’ said Hilda. ‘It is but a year and a few months, since two brothers and one woman, three as we are, in the same bonds save one, all stood together as we stand, perhaps, and by their deeds and deaths wiped away death from our lives. Talk no more of death now—in this other home, where there are other names than those that were dishonoured. Let this be the house of life, as that was the house of death, the home of honest love, as that was the home of treachery, the dwelling of peace, as that was made at last the place of violent and desperate deeds. The hour of destiny is passed. The days without fear begin to-day.’
It was indeed the decisive moment in the lives of all three, and there was silence for a space after Hilda had spoken. The thoughts her words called up passed rapidly through the minds of her hearers and produced their effect on each. As she had truly said, there was a mysterious resemblance between the climax and the anti-climax of their history. As Rieseneck and Greifenstein had been half-brothers, so were Greif and Rex; as their fathers had loved one woman, so they also both loved Hilda; as the elder pair might have been, but for the woman who wrought their destruction, honourable, brave and earnest men, so were their sons in reality—the difference lay not so much between the fathers and the sons, as between one woman and the other, between Clara Kurtz and Hilda von Sigmundskron. Instead of ruining both brothers, as Clara had done, Hilda had saved both from destruction, in the place of shame, she had brought honour, in the stead of death she had given life to both. And both looked at her during the silence and wondered inwardly at the beauty of her strength, asking themselves how it was possible that in a few short months this child of the forest, innocent and ignorant of the world, should have attained to proportions that were almost divine in their eyes, should have developed from the simple maiden to the noble woman, from the quiet, gentle girl, to the splendidly dominating incarnation of good, that had more than once overcome their mistaken impulses, and made plain their way before them by the illumination of the right, just as her golden head and gleaming eyes seemed to light up the room in which she stood. They looked at her and wondered, both loving her beyond all earthly things, each in his own way; the one with the earnest, deep-rooted purpose to live and die in all honour for her sake, silent for ever, having spoken once, doing daily homage to her innocence and loveliness, and reverently sacrificing every day for her the very love whereby he lived; the other, loving in her the wife, the mother of his sons, the source of all the glorious happiness that had come upon his early manhood in such an abundant measure, the woman who had saved him, the woman he adored, the woman who was his, as he was hers. Neither had known before how great and good she was, and from this day neither would ever forget one shade of the goodness and the greatness she had revealed to both.
A baser man than Rex would have suffered and would have foreseen suffering throughout his coming days, in dwelling beside the woman who could not be his. But he was made of better stuff than most men, and his passion had received a stern and sudden check from the force of his commanding will. It was as though Hilda had been deified before him, and had been lifted to a sphere in which he could worship her as a higher being and forget that she was a woman. He bowed his head in thought, while Hilda and Greif stood before him. They saw the white streaks in the soft hair that had been so brown and bright but yesterday, and they glanced at each other, awestruck at the thought of what he must have suffered.
‘His hair is white—and it is for me!’ Hilda whispered as she leaned upon her husband’s shoulder.
Rex’s quick ear caught the words, though they were scarcely audible. He looked up, and his stony eyes grew strangely soft and expressive.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know it—but it is not strange. I am glad it is so, for it was in a good cause. You are right, Hilda, my sister—the hour of destiny is passed. It has left its marks, but they are pledges that it will not return. The new life begins to-day—give me your hands, both of you—do mine tremble so? It is with happiness, not with pain—oh, not with pain, do not think it! Give me a share in your lives, since you will. I take it gladly, and you shall not regret it. You have my word that you shall never feel one sting when you look at me, you, my brother, you, my sister. I will be a brother to you both, a son to her you both call mother, though, in truth, I am too old for that—but she must be a mother to us all, in place of what none of us have ever had, save Hilda. And I kiss your hand, dear sister—so—it is the pledge—I take yours in mine, brother, and I know you, and you know me, and we can look each into the other’s eyes and say I trust, and know that we trust well. There—it is done, and we are joined, we three, for good or evil, to stand together if there be strife still in store for us who have striven so much, to live in brotherly love and peace, if peace is to be ours, until the grey years come and we are laid side by side together.’
‘So be it, and may God bless us all,’ said Greif.
‘God will bless us,’ answered Hilda softly.
One more pressure of the hands and then Greif and Hilda turned and went away. The door closed softly behind them, and Rex was alone.
He went and took up the revolver that Hilda had laid upon the table, looked at it long, and then placed it in the drawer, and turned the key upon it. Once more he sat down where he had sat so long, and buried his face in his hands, and pressed them to his aching eyes.
The greater sacrifice was accomplished now, and he knew that it was over, and that his years would be in peace, for all was clear and honest and true as the day. He looked up at last, upwards as though searching for something above him, straining his weary sight for a vision that was not granted him.
‘I have lived,’ he said aloud, in a strange voice. ‘I had never lived before, never in all this time. And if they are right, if You are there, You, their God—then bless me too, with them, and make me like them! Is that a prayer? Why then, I will say Amen, and be it so! It is the only prayer I could ever pray now, to be like them, to be like them—yes, only that, to be like them!’
And Rex meant what he said. He was incapable of seeing that he himself had done anything more than his plain and honourable duty. He knew that he had overcome what had seemed most base in his own eyes, but he would have been amazed if any one had suggested that any credit was due to him for that, since he had but obeyed the law of honour, the only law he knew or recognised. In his own estimation he was not less contemptible for having harboured a thought which would have been dishonourable only if it had been base and gross, but which, being so pure and sacred, was but the natural expression of a noble heart. But he saw in Hilda and Greif a generosity which seemed boundless when confronted with the evil of which he judged himself guilty, and he felt that genuine gratitude which only a high-souled being can feel in such a case.
Perhaps, if the truth were told, Rex was himself the noblest of the three. It is certain that he had suffered most, and he had assuredly suffered bravely, and fought against what he hated in himself with an earnestness and true-hearted purpose worthy of a good man. Hilda and Greif thought so, at least, as they walked slowly away from his room.
‘We have seen a strange and wonderful sight, my beloved,’ said Greif, as they came out together again upon the terrace. They had returned thither instinctively in order to be alone.
‘Wonderful indeed. Ah, Greif, you were right when you said that he was a grand man. I never thought that there were such men as that nowadays.’
‘And we were wrong to say that he was cold.’
‘You saw his hair! I was frightened when I thought of what he must have suffered, to make it change like that! Oh, Greif, is it my fault? Have I any fault in it? I should never rest again, if I thought so.’
‘What fault of yours can there be?’
‘Do you remember, long ago, on that day when you came to ask my mother, here, on this very terrace—I told you to speak to him?’
‘Yes. What of it?’
‘Perhaps it was vanity after all. Perhaps, if I had let him hate me, or dislike me, or whatever it was—all this might never have happened. It is my fault, it is, I know it is!’
‘No, darling—it is not. Things could not then have gone on as they were going, and we both did right. You heard his story—you know how truthful he is. He told us exactly what had happened to him, and he told us for that very reason, in order to make it clear that he had not known it all along, but had realised it suddenly, as he said he did. If he had guessed before that he was in danger of loving you he would not have stayed a day under our roof. But it came upon him all at once, and when it came upon him it was too strong, and too great.’
‘And besides, he knew that you were his brother, from the first. That made it worse. How wonderfully he has kept the secret through all this time!’
‘There is nobody like him. There is only one Rex in the world,’ said Greif in a tone of conviction.
‘And there is only one Greif in the world,’ Hilda answered.
‘Fortunately. Do you know? I feel as if Rex were really going to make it easier for us.’
‘Easier? How?’
‘Easier to keep this thing from your mother. Hilda—it is a fearful story! As we stood there together, when you were speaking, I felt it all, I saw those other three, I heard their voices, I knew what they must have felt and thought and said, on that night. It must have been an awful scene. And here are we—two brothers, as they were—ah, the difference is in you, darling—how can I ever thank you for being Hilda!’
‘By loving me, sweetheart. Do not think of that in any other way. Besides, you owe me nothing. I cannot help loving you. If I did not love you I might hate you, though I think I should admire you, all the same.’
‘Admire me!’ exclaimed Greif, with an honest laugh.
‘You were grand to-day—you were so generous!’
‘I do not see much generosity—’
‘You are not a woman. How can you see anything! Do you think that every man would have put out his hand to another who loved his wife and said so? It was splendid—I was so proud of you.’
‘What else could I have done? And then, I was not jealous, I am not now, I never shall be, of him.’
‘You are right in that, dear. That is not the sort of love that a man need be jealous of. It is not love at all, as we think of love, strong as it is.’
‘How much you know!’
‘I know about love—yes, a great deal, for I have thought about it, ever since I first loved you, when I was little. Yes, I know much about love, much more than you would think. What Rex feels, is a sort of wild adoration, half ecstasy, half imagination, which he connects in some way with my face and the sound of my voice. That is all. It is not like what I feel for you, or you for me. He would not be sorry if I died. It would make it easier for him. He would build temples to me, and kneel before a picture of me, and be quite as happy as he is now. One sees that. And yet it is all so real, and he suffers so fearfully, that his hair has turned white. Poor fellow, and I am so very fond of him!’
‘What makes you think all you say, Hilda?’ asked Greif, growing interested in her strange view of the case.
‘The whole thing. He is as fond of you as ever, and more so, just as you are of him. Now if it were our sort of love, you two would instinctively go and cut each other’s throats, and that would be the natural ending. Instead of that, you love each other like brothers as you are. Do you not see that it must be a different kind of love from ours?’
‘Yes. You are right. But it is not less real.’
‘Less real? No! It seems more real to him than ours could ever seem, if he were capable of it. That is the reason why he is so grand, and true and noble—being placed as he is. If he loved me as you have always loved me, I should hate him, even if I pitied him; I should want him to go away, so that I might never see him again, nor hear of him. I should be miserable so long as he were under the roof. And instead of that—I feel that he is a dear brother and a true friend.’
‘So do I.’
‘And he will be all we expect of him. You and I must try to make his life happy, Greif. He is a very lonely man. He is much older than we are—just think! He is nearly as old as my mother. But he looked old to-day. Poor Rex! I would do anything to make him happy.’
‘You have made him happy already.’
‘How?’
‘You have made him forgive himself, and you have made him feel that he is one of us, more than ever before. Only a woman could have done that, Hilda—perhaps no woman but you.’
‘Do you think I did that? I should be very glad—’
‘I am sure of it. He never yields unless he is convinced. He is a man of iron and steel. If he had still believed that he was to blame for all this, no earthly power would have made him consent to live. And now, he will live, and he will be happy. He owes his life to you, darling.’
‘As I owe yours to him.’
‘As I owe mine to you both. Surely, no three were ever so bound together as we are. It is strange and wonderful.’
‘But the bond is closest here, my beloved!’ exclaimed Hilda, as her arms went round him.
‘Ay, closest and best!’ answered Greif, as their lips met.
During that long and eventful morning Frau von Sigmundskron had been alone. Of all the four she only knew no sadness. When she went from time to time and gazed upon her little grandson, she felt as though her heart would burst with gladness. There, in his small cradle, lay the realisation of a hope she had thought vain for nearly twenty years. There lay a little Sigmundskron, a sturdy little baby with white hair and bright eyes and rosy mouth, his tiny hands clenched stubbornly in the first effort to feel his own mimic strength, fair as a Gothic child should be, without blemish, perfect and noble in every point. There he was, and his name was Sigmundskron as well as Sigmund, and the day would come when he should be tall and strong. In his veins there stirred that good blood that had never known fear or dishonour, untainted still through nigh a thousand years. Not only had he the name, as Greif had—that little child had the blood also, and he would surely have the loyal heart and the strong hand. And he should have brothers, too. Never again should the fate of the ancient race hang by the single silken strand that had borne its burden so bravely. And that little child was to have not only the name and the lion’s soul, and the bare walls of Sigmundskron. He was to have broad lands and princely wealth. He was to have the power, as well as the will, the worldly greatness befitting the son of such a high and lordly line.
It seemed too good to believe, too good to think, too good to see. Day after day from his birth the white-haired lady came and looked at him and never tired of the wonderful truth. All had been wonderful of late, but the rosy little Sigmund was the best of all her wonders. She had grown to care for little else. She loved them all with a great love passing words, but she loved them best for what they had given her, for what lay in the cradle in the great cool nursery.
The tears would come, and she let them flow on unheeded, day by day. But they were not the old tears of long ago, that had left cruel stains upon her cheeks and aching fires in her brain. Their soothing streams came from the fountain of a new life and washed away the pain of the grey years in their healing flood. Instead of the pale dye of grief, they left behind them soft, faint hues as of returning day; instead of fierce, smarting heat, they brought the clear light of other years to the eyes that had seen such horror of death, such misery of want, and that now gazed tranquilly on such sights of unspeakable joy.
To-day, she spent long hours alone beside what she loved best in the world. The christening had given a new impulse to all she felt, and it seemed to her that the child was more her own than ever. A long time she stood with folded hands before the tiny bed, thinking, thinking always of the great deeds that little boy should one day dare and do, for God and king and country. Many times she stooped and kissed his dazzling face, that seemed to glow with light from within, and each time her cheeks were wet, as the sudden and almost unbearable thrill of certain happiness leaped through her heart. Then all at once she smiled, then turned and went out softly and entered her own room.
The glory of the summer’s day streamed in through the lofty window, shedding a blaze of light upon all within, upon the smooth matting that had replaced the patched old carpet, upon the old chest that held so many of her dearest treasures, upon the broad expanse of black velvet whereon were hung the most precious things she owned, two swords in their scabbards and a leathern helmet with a gilded spike.
She went up to the place and stood a moment, looking at the three objects. Then she took down the sabre and held it in her two hands, lovingly, as she would have held the child she adored. Her white hand grasped the hilt, and the burnished blade leaped from its sheath like a meteor into the blazing sunshine.
There was not a tarnished spot upon the good steel, not a speck of dust upon its gleaming length, not a shadow along the bright bevel. But she was not satisfied. With endless care she polished the shining surface again and again, with leather and silk, as she had done every day since she had brought it back nearly twenty years ago. She sheathed it then in its scabbard, and rubbed that, and last of all the hilt. Then she was satisfied.
Once more she paused and gazed at the spot where it had hung so long, as though asking herself whether she could part with it. But her hesitation was short, and the bright smile came again to her face as she went back to her grandson’s cradle. With her own hands she drove two nails into the tapestried wall above his head. As the clock struck twelve, she fastened the burnished weapon securely in its new place.
‘It is the sword of his fathers,’ she said softly. ‘God give him strength and grace to draw it in good cause!’