A right—and why? What had Greif done to deserve Hilda more than Rex? He was younger, handsomer, and more fortunate. That was the point. Greif’s luck had saved him, and what was life to him was death to Rex. It was pure good fortune. There had not been a struggle or the least desire for one. Rex himself had done everything in his power to push on the marriage, and could blame no one for the result. Greif was happy and Rex was broken-hearted. If Greif had refused to marry Hilda, Rex might perhaps have won her, supplying by his own wealth the fortune which should have been hers through Greif’s ruin.
Luck indeed! There was Greif, nameless and penniless in reality, but unconscious of the awful misfortunes he had escaped, delivered from the borrowed name that was stained, and invested with one more noble and spotless than the other had ever been, lord of Sigmundskron, husband of Hilda, father of a new race. What more could the heart of man desire? That was what Greif appeared to be, and was, so far as he himself was aware. And this—Rex drew from a secret place his father’s last letter—this was the real Greif whom none knew but Rex.
He read the words carefully many times. Then he leaned back in his chair and gazed long through the open window at the distant forest. At last he rose and lit a candle. It might be best that he should die now, but if so, this secret must die with him. He had only preserved the writing in case Greif refused to marry Hilda, and now they were not only married, but there was an heir born to them. He held the letter in the midst of the flame, and then the envelope till both were consumed to ashes, and the summer breeze that blew into the room wafted the black remains, light as threads of gossamer, from the table to the floor, and away into dark corners to crumble into dust.
No one could ever guess the secret now, thought Rex, not dreaming that by a strange train of circumstances another letter had been stored away beneath the same roof but yesterday in the safe keeping of honest Berbel. Greif was safe, thought Rex, as he laid his hand upon the drawer again, to take the other thing from its place. He, Rex, would leave no tell-tale letters behind. It should be sharp, short, complete and decisive. There would be some regrets for the lonely man who was gone, and they would never dream how he had purchased their security with his life. He laid the weapon upon the table before him.
Their security? Surely, that was but a theatrical phrase, with no meaning, spoken to make his miserable death seem grand, or at least worthy. Security implied danger, and what danger could his wretched life bring to Hilda or her husband? The thought that Hilda could ever love him was monstrous, the suggestion that he could ever speak loving words to her he loved, since he knew who she was, stung him like a blow on the mouth. That splendid angel could no more stoop from her superb purity, than he, Rex, could have flung a handful of mud in her divine face—no more than he could have entertained for one horrible instant the thought of sullying what God had made so white. He had a bitter scorn of that word security, so soon as it had flashed unspoken through his mind; he cursed his own soul for the contemptible thought. And in his self-abasement, he was heroic, unconsciously, as heroes are. He was to die, but it was for honour’s sake, and not for any foul wrong done to man or woman.
He could say that, with a clear conscience. From the moment when he had felt the truth, and had known that he loved his brother’s wife, he had been tortured almost past endurance. Not one sweet thought of Hilda had entered his heart, there was nothing there but the stabbing pain of his own folly, and the scaring consciousness that his folly had ended in the most appalling of all truths. There was nothing in his mind but a relentless hatred of himself, a stunning and sudden comprehension of what he had allowed himself to dream. Even, if there had been no other reason, he deserved to die, he judged himself worthy of death. It was for honour’s sake—how could he live and face them all, knowing what he was, even if they did not know? There must be an end, and there could be but one end to his sufferings. He put out his hand and drew the weapon into his grasp.
What was honour, that he should die for it? He had believed in very little beyond himself during forty years, but he believed in honour and had been reckoned a most honourable man among those who had known him. He had risked his life for it many a time, but now, for its sake, he was to take his own life without risk, deliberately, as he would have shot a wild beast, as he would have crushed a poisonous reptile under his heel. What was this thing? Was it a fact, a shadow, an idea, a breath, a god or a devil? What was it, for which such deeds had been done, for which old Greifenstein and Rieseneck had slain his mother and laid down their lives in such stern haste? A man might well ask what he was to die for, thought Rex. Why did it seem base in him to live, even though every moment of his existence were to be spent in rooting out what he so hated, in burning out what had defiled his soul; and why did it seem noble and brave to die? To die was easy as drawing a breath, to live was a hard and fearful thing. Yet honour said, Die and be satisfied that you are doing right. Did honour always command what was easiest for a man to do? Again, what was it? He had but a few moments left to live, and in a lifetime he had served honour scrupulously. What if it were but a myth, but a legend of fools, a destroying idol worshipped by brave and brainless visionaries, who had more courage than intelligence, more desire to do right than discernment to sift right from wrong? Pity that so many daring, honest men should have been spitted on rapiers, cloven with sabres, riddled with bullet-holes, for the sake of a vain breath, emptier than the glass he had raised to his lips last night! And yet—he might search, and deny, and argue, and scoff—honour remained a fact. No, not a fact, a law. A law having rules, and conditions and penalties and rewards all defined in the human heart, all equally beyond the range of the human intelligence. His brain could not imagine a question in which honour was concerned, to which his heart did not give the right answer instantaneously, quicker than the brain itself could have solved the problem. And what the heart told him was right, indubitably and indisputably right. Then he was to die for something he felt but could not understand, for the decision of some power within him, wiser and swifter and surer than the cool head to which he had trusted so long. To call that power the heart was nonsense, as absurd as to call it a function of the brain. It was distinct from both, it had a being of its own, independent, dominating, tremendous in its effects. In danger the head said, stop; the heart said, go on. And honour, then, was the spontaneous reasoning of this superior power, whatever it might be. But, if it reasoned, so unfailingly and so surely about some things, why had it nothing to say about others? Why could this faultless judge decide of nothing save right and wrong? From habit, doubtless, because we refer no other questions to him. No, for when we ask a question of ourselves, or when one is asked of us by another, we do not always know beforehand which part of ourselves will answer. Mystery of mysteries, to be solved only by assuming that man has an immortal soul. Idle waste of time, thought Rex, looking at the cartridge in his revolver and then slowly setting back the hammer. An idle waste of time, to think of such matters. Honour or no honour, heart or no heart, the mysterious power within him bade him die. Die, then, and be done with it. He held the weapon in his hand, ready to do the deed. One second, and all would be over. At one end of that polished dark blue barrel was life, with all its dishonour, with all its sufferings, with all the monstrous blackness of evil it held, the life of an honest man who loved his brother’s wife in spite of himself, and loathed the thought. At the other end was death, swift, sharp, sure, the answer to all questions, the solution of all ills, the medicine for all earthly woe. Rex laid the revolver down, and drew back a little from the table. Was it possible that he was killing himself merely to escape suffering, to rid himself of pain, to desist from a contest too bitter for his endurance? If that were it, Rex was a miserable coward, and not the honourable man he had thought himself. With the instinct that prompts many men to do the same at such moments, he rose from his chair and went to the mirror. He started when he saw himself in it. It was as though the marvellous look of youth that had clung to him so long, had fallen from his face, and left an old man’s features behind. His skin was livid, his eyes were sunken, the flesh was drawn and white about his nostrils and brows and temples. His hair and beard, matted with cold sweat, hung in wild disorder about his head and face. It was strange that the bright summer’s morning should even seem to change their colour—or was it a defect in the glass? He looked nearer, and he scarcely dared to believe his eyes. There were grey hairs, whole locks of grey, in the soft brown masses. He had heard of such quick changes but had never believed them real. He gazed in silence at the reflexion of himself for some minutes.
‘I am an old man,’ he said softly, and turned away, forgetting what he had come to see—whether he were a coward or not.
He went back to the table and sat down, supporting his head in his two hands. He realised what he had suffered, and the question returned to his agonised brain. Was he killing himself to escape torture, or out of his love of honour? He wondered bitterly whether any pain could be worse in the future than what he had borne during this night, and during the hours since the dawn had broken in upon him. It seemed impossible. Then on a sudden, the bright image of Hilda burst upon his sight as he pressed his closed lids with the palms of his hands. Hilda was there before him in all her splendour, he could see every line of her face, every shade of its glorious colouring, every twist of her yellow hair. The light streamed upon him from the whole vision, and he was looking into the bright depths of her eyes. It was exquisite delight, and yet he felt overwhelmed with shame that he should dare to look and love. It was like him to fight to the utmost. With a supreme effort he opened his eyes, and suffered himself to be dazzled by the violent daylight. The vision was gone, but he understood what he must bear, without a sign of pain, if he were to look upon the reality. And yet he knew his own strength. Face to face with Hilda he could have forced his stony eyes to dulness and his features to an indifferent calm. He could do that and not fail. The clear memory of her he had received in that moment told him how much he was able to resist, but showed him also what that resistance would cost; above all it had exhibited to him in all beauty and clearness of detail that upon which he was never to look again. The pain had been sharp and quick, and was scarcely distinguished from the momentary, involuntary happiness. But he could bear it, and worse. It was not to escape it that he had determined to end his life. Nor would he do the fatal deed if he were sure that he were impelled to it merely in the hope of escaping a little suffering, or much. Whatever his faults might be, he was brave still; braver now, perhaps, than he had ever been. There had been a time when all human action, or inaction, had seemed to him so indifferent in itself and in its consequences, that he had almost scoffed at the idea of contrasting courage with cowardice. But he had not then been put to the test as he was now.
It was not the fear of what he must bear that drove him from existence. He was sure of that. He resolutely set himself to think of what life would be in the future, if he chose it, and if he stayed where he was. It was clear that he could live, if he pleased, and meet Hilda, and Greif, and Hilda’s mother, and keep a calm face and a steady voice when he was with them. If it were a question of courage, that would be the least courageous course. It would be easier to suffer anything than to put himself beyond the possibility of ever seeing Hilda again. He owned, in bitter self-contempt, that this was absolutely true. The sting of death was there, in the choice of total extinction, in the act of leaving all that he loved, as well as in the extermination of that self which held the power to love. But for one thought, life would still be sweet. All the torment of an existence made dreadful by the hopelessness of an unquenchable passion would be nothing, as compared with the hourly joy of seeing Hilda and of hearing her voice. That would compensate for all things, no matter how horrible, except one; but that one outweighed the rest. The certainty that his whole life hereafter must be one long act of treachery to Greif must overbalance everything else.