‘My father is also with them,’ said Rex, answering the unspoken question. Greif grasped the table and stared at his companion stupidly for a moment. Then all at once his pale face grew luminous and his eyes glittered.
‘Rieseneck?’ he cried, in a suffocated tone. ‘Your father has slain mine and yet you are here—’ He rose from his seat, half mad with horror, as though he would spring upon his friend. But the latter interrupted him, in a tone which enforced attention.
‘Your mother is dead—God knows how. Your father and my father shot themselves, sitting in their chairs.’
Again Greif’s head sank upon his clasped hands, and again the deadly silence descended upon the chamber.
The long December night was over and it was broad dawn when the two men got out of the express train at the station nearest to Greifenstein. Without a word they entered the carriage that had been waiting for them, and the sturdy horses plunged into the forest, breasting the ascent as only strong animals can on a cold winter’s morning. The early light made the great trees look unspeakably gloomy and mournful. There was not a tinge of colour to relieve the dead black shadows, or the icy grey of the driven snow. The tall firs stood solemn and motionless like overgrown cypresses, planted in an endless graveyard, filled with myriads of snow-covered graves, and in the midst Greif and Rex were whirled along over the winding road, pale as dead men themselves as they sat side by side in their dark garments, with set lips and eyes half closed against the freezing wind.
But when the towering wall of Greifenstein came into sight far off above the black tree-tops, Greif started and leaned forward, fixing his eyes upon his home; nor did he change his attitude until the carriage drew up before the deep gateway, and he was aware of a crowd of men and women who stood there awaiting his arrival. Before all the rest, he saw the tall thin figure of Frau von Sigmundskron. Her white hands were clasped together and she was bareheaded. Standing out before the others, in her gown of sober grey, she looked like a mediaeval saint suddenly come down to earth in modern times. As Greif descended she held out her arms to greet him. He realised that she must have journeyed from Sigmundskron in the night in order to be before him.
‘I thank you,’ he said, kissing her hands.
With an effort of will that would have done credit to his dead father, he entered the castle, bending his head gravely in acknowledgment of the servants’ tearful salutations. Though most of them were the merest hirelings in the house, who had lately succeeded others like themselves, yet almost all were in tears. Frau von Sigmundskron looked at Rex in some surprise.
‘A friend?’ she asked with some hesitation.
‘More,’ answered Greif. ‘Let us go to some place where we can be alone.’