‘And are you afraid of the world, Greif?’ asked Hilda. ‘That is not like you. For the Riesenecks, well, I understand—he was disgraced, condemned, imprisoned. But you! It is like a dreadful story of the dark ages, but there is no shame in it, nothing to be ashamed of. It is terrible, awful, appalling, but you can hold your head as high as any one. Do you suppose it is the first tragedy that ever occurred in your family or in mine? Did not old Sigmund strangle his own brother with his hands, here in this house, seven hundred years ago, and am I ashamed to call him my forefather?’
‘That is very different from what has happened to me,’ answered Greif. ‘You cannot understand, but the world judges according to its light. If I, the son of a man who murdered his wife and killed himself, were to present myself to any man of my own rank and ask him for his daughter in marriage I should receive a refusal, and perhaps an indignant one. I am not considered a fit person to marry an innocent girl of my class, I am stamped with a stained name, branded with the sign of others’ crimes, ruined before my life is begun, cut off from happiness, from ambition, from you—O Hilda! that is what I came to tell you—I have spoken very badly—it is best to say it clearly. My beloved, this has taken you from me, and me from you, and has cast me adrift from all that remained, from the greatest and best of all. If I could dare to marry you now, to give you my miserable name, to take you to the home that is darkened by so many deaths—I should be the last and lowest of men! It is of no use, for I feel it—the only honourable thing left for me to do, in so much dishonour, is to leave you for ever and at once. If I were willing still to make you my wife you ought to despise me, and trample the memory of my love under foot as a vile thing. O Hilda, Hilda! it is death to me, but it is best for you.’
The blow had fallen, and Hilda sat quite still in her place, covering her eyes with one hand, as she had done at first. All through his long preamble, she had felt that there was something dreadful to come, and now it had come indeed, in the shape she least expected, in the shape which of all others she would most have feared. She did not move, but the soft, fresh colour faded from her face, till it was whiter than the white hand she held before it. Greif looked at her, and his head swam. He thought neither of her suffering nor of his own, as the words came fast and incoherent from his pale lips. He went on, insisting, repeating, lamenting with the vehemence of a passionate man who has overcome all that is gentlest in himself and takes a savage delight in rending his own wounds.
‘It is done, and you know, now,’ he cried bitterly. ‘I have fought against myself, against every one, to do this thing—do you think it is easy to give up such a love as you have been to me? And yet, I would not take you, no, not if you pursued me across the world—what right have I to you? The right of loving better than anything God has made was ever loved before? It is gone, that right, gone with my name, gone with all I once was, buried with my father and my mother in the old place beyond Greifenstein. Right? I have no rights any longer—neither to love, nor to hate, nor to be happy in the thought of love, nor of Hilda. And yet, in all the years to come, you will be with me. I cannot give up the right to remember you, and to think of your dear eyes. Ah, if it were but my own fault, how easy it would be to bear! I wish I had wronged you—you would thrust me from you—it would help me—at least, if I had done you harm, I could die for it, and that would be so easy and simple, and would end all so well. I wish I had done some hideous, nameless deed with my own hands, that I might be driven out by men, and forced to leave you by others stronger than I! Anything, anything, anything but this!’
He bent his head against the cold stones of the high chimney-piece, and beat his brow against the hewn carvings of it, closing his eyelids over his dry and smarting eyes, wishing that every moment might be the last of his wretched existence, and at the same time miserably conscious that his strength would outlast all his sufferings. He had meant to be so calm and gentle, he had planned how he would gradually explain all to Hilda and break the shock for her, he had thought that when it was over, he could firmly say one solemn good-bye, and go back to his home alone. He had not known what love could do, nor how he should be tortured and wounded and bruised in the conflict. But yet he was strong and victorious. His dignity and self-respect had been sorely shaken in the fight, and he had not found the calm and tactful speeches he had planned before; but in spite of every one, and chiefly in spite of his own heart, he had bravely done what he had come to do. The victory was more agonising than any defeat could have been, but it was victory, notwithstanding.
Manlike, in his utmost distress, he had forgotten Hilda’s self in the overwhelming thoughts of her that rushed through his confused brain. Her hands had fallen upon her knee and she sat like a statue in the deep old chair, whiter than any marble, her colourless lips parted, her wonderful eyes fixed upon him in a glassy stare. Even her hair seemed to have lost its golden sheen, as though it were suddenly dead or turning into stone. And yet she was not unconscious. A very strong and perfect organisation rarely breaks down under the first shock it receives, no matter how violent. Hilda was not only conscious, she was even able to speak.
‘Greif!’ She spoke his name clearly, in a low voice.
He started, for he had almost forgotten her presence. He lifted his haggard face and turned towards her, supporting himself with one hand on the chimney-piece.
‘Do you mean all you have said?’ she asked very slowly, as though each word cost her an effort.
‘I mean it all, Hilda,’ he answered, his tones still trembling with the violence of the storm that had passed through him.