‘Good,’ answered Berbel. ‘I will not talk about it, and as for Wastei, I would trust him with anything.’
Hilda slipped the fatal letter into the bosom of her frock and went in search of her husband.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Greif had not found the man who was supposed to be waiting for him, and he himself had sat down to wait for Hilda on the shady side of the great tower. The air was warm and fragrant, even at that height, with the odour of the pines, and the sun was not yet high enough to make it unpleasantly hot. Through the bright, sunlit distance Greif could see many a familiar landmark of the forest, and as he sat there doing nothing, he amused himself half unconsciously with counting the points in the surrounding landscape which he had visited, and those he had never reached, and the number of the former greatly exceeded that of the rest. It was a very peaceful scene, and Greif breathed in the smooth refreshing air with delight, while his eyes wandered lazily up and down the heights and along the feathery green crests of the forest’s waves. For all the firs and pines were still tipped with the green of their new-grown shoots, though the autumn winds and the winter snows would soon stain the newcomers as black as the old boughs on which they grew. The time is short indeed, during which the Black Forest is not black, but takes a softer hue, and a warmer light. The autumn comes early, the spring comes late, there is but little summer, and the winter has it all to himself during the rest of the time. But though the summer days be few, they are of exquisite beauty, such as are rarely seen elsewhere in Europe. Greif knew, as he sat by his tower, that they were nearly over, and he was the more grateful for the delight of the soft sunshine, of the green treetops, of the fragrance of the forest coming up to his nostrils over the grey ramparts, of the short whistle of the shooting swallows, that seemed to spring up like the spray of a fountain out of the abyss beneath, and after circling the highest pinnacle of the castle fell again with lightning speed into the cool depths below. Greif listened to the rushing noise of their wings, and to their short, clear cry, and he wished that Hilda were beside him, to help him to enjoy the more what already gave him such keen pleasure. To him, indeed, Sigmundskron still had the charm of novelty. Its situation on a high and projecting crag was very different from that of Greifenstein, which latter was but the three-cornered end of a precipitous promontory, cut off from the forest by its single enormous bulwark. Sigmundskron commanded a view of many miles over the landscape below, while Greifenstein lay much lower, and a man standing on the topmost rampart could but just look over the level sea of the treetops to the higher hills in the distance beyond.
Greif was very happy. It seemed to him as though all the possible unhappiness of his life had concentrated itself into a very short time, not extending over more than a few days, from the moment when he had received news of the catastrophe in the hall at the banquet at Schwarzburg, to that in which the delirium of his fever had overtaken him. The rest had been but little troubled by the tragedy which had left him alone in the world. Nothing cuts us off from the past more effectually than a dangerous illness in which we are for the most part unconscious. Greif had felt, when he recovered, that he was completely separated from the former time, and the sensation had itself contributed to his recovery, by deadening the sense of pain that had been with him so constantly before he broke down altogether. Rex had not been ill, and to him the past did not seem so distant; moreover he knew what Greif did not know, and had greater cause for sadness. Greif was happy, and he knew it. It appeared impossible, so far as he could see, that anything should arise out of the gloom of Greifenstein to trouble his serenity in Sigmundskron. Every effort had been made by him and Rex together to discover some clue to the mystery, which for Rex was no mystery any longer, and nothing had been found which could cast the smallest light upon what had happened. Rex suggested the possibility of a sudden madness having overtaken one or more of the party, and Greif was so easily satisfied, and so glad to bury the past, that he accepted the idea without defining it. He reflected, indeed, that under no imaginable circumstances could his present be touched or disturbed by the true explanation of the tragedy, should it ever be found, and he was content to let the tide of years flow silently over the place those terrible deeds held in his own life.
It is no wonder that he was happy now, since all his hopes were attained and all his desires satisfied. Being also of a faithful and persistent nature, his satisfaction was solid and permanent. Apart from the one dark spot which was so rapidly fading into the dim distance, he had no regrets; no dreams of what might have been sent rays of false light through his present, no images of disappointed desires haunted him in the silent night, no shadows of a lost joy, still madly anticipated in the distorted anachronisms of a wounded heart, came between him and Hilda’s glorious beauty. That misery of humanity was unknown to him, in which the soul still looks forward with a beating, throbbing hope to what the memory knows is buried in the depth and dust of twenty years. All was real, present, glorious, happy and complete. If any one had asked him what he most dreaded, he would have said that he dreaded death alone, death for Hilda, death for the sturdy little child that was to bear the name now his, death for himself, though for himself the fear was less than for the other two. That anything but death could bring back those days and nights of agony through which he had once passed, he did not and he could not believe. Even as he sat beneath the shadow of the tower on that summer’s morning he asked himself the question, and the answer was the same as ever. Why, indeed, should he not be left in peace? Why should he even expect the possibility of evil? Evil might come, assuredly, but it must come in some sudden, violent and unexpected shape out of the present, by accident, by illness, by death. The terrors of the past were with the past, and Greif was too strong, and young, and happy to expect misfortune in the present. He sat there, peacefully gazing at the green feathers of the firs and at the circling swallows, and almost laughing to scorn the possibility of a pain that was already near him, that was with him now, as Hilda’s graceful figure emerged from the door of the tower and stood beside him.
Her face was still a little pale, but she looked almost supernaturally beautiful in her gravity. It is possible that if she had been transported into the midst of the world, of that company of half-morbid, half-enthusiastic beings which we define commonly as society, she might not have pleased those tired critics altogether as well as one of themselves, though she would assuredly have surprised them exceedingly, and perhaps when she began to grow old they would remember that they had never seen anything like her. But here, in her natural surroundings, she was magnificent. She was dressed all in white, and the delicate shades of her colouring did not suffer by the contrast, but seemed more perfect and harmonious, blended as all the tints were by the all-pervading light of the clear mountain air in the thin, vapoury blue shadows of the old tower. And the rough grey stone was a harmonious background for her beauty and its rugged surface showed more completely the exquisite outlines of her face and figure. Greif saw her beside him, and could not repress his admiration.
‘Hilda—how beautiful you are!’ he exclaimed, springing to his feet and putting his arms about her.