‘My dear Greif, my beloved son—first of all, I remind you that you are a man and a brave one, and I solemnly enjoin upon you to act like one, and to put your trust in God. A great misfortune has befallen you, and at the moment of death I look to you to bear its burden in a manner worthy of a German gentleman. Heaven will certainly atone to you for the injustice of a cruel destiny. Your mother was the lawful wife of my brother Rieseneck. She has deceived me for five and twenty years, until his sudden coming revealed to me all her crimes within an hour. You are therefore illegitimate and nameless, and not one penny of my fortune is yours. I am utterly dishonoured by this enormous wickedness. My brother and I have done justice upon the woman Clara Kurtz, Freiherrin von Rieseneck, after receiving her full confession, and nothing remains for us but to die decently. As for you, I need not point out your course. You will declare the truth to my cousin Therese von Sigmundskron, who is the sole heir to all my fortune and estates, being next of kin in the line of the Greifensteins. You will renounce your engagement to marry Hilda von Sigmundskron. You will enter the ranks and serve your king as a private soldier, which is the only course open to a penniless gentleman. I know you too well to think you will hesitate a moment. My brother leaves a son by his wife, who goes by the name of Rex, and to whom he is now writing. Perhaps it is the student of whom you have spoken often to me lately. He is your brother as Rieseneck is mine, and he is rich by his father’s death. But you will accept nothing from him, nor from any one else except your sovereign, who, if he learns your story, may help you if he be graciously pleased to do so.
‘My son, I am about to die. I have taken the law into my own hands and I must pay the penalty by the only hand to which I can submit. If I have been at fault towards you, if I have been deceived by this woman through any carelessness of mine, I, your father, implore your forgiveness at this final moment. And so I leave you. May the God of our fathers protect and bless you, and bring you to a nobler end than mine. Though you are nameless and penniless, you can yet be a Christian man; you can be true, you can be brave, and you can give your life, which is all you have to give, to your king and your country. Farewell. Your father,
‘HUGO VON GREIFENSTEIN.’
Strange as it may seem, both Hilda and Greif read this long letter to the end before they paused, almost before they understood what it meant. Their two faces were livid, as they sat in the shadow of the tower, and gazed at each other with wild and staring eyes. The cold sweat of horror stood upon Greif’s forehead, like the drops of moisture on a marble statue when the south wind blows.
But there was a vast difference between Greif’s condition now and his state when he had broken down under the burden of his emotions eighteen months earlier. The calm and peaceful life had strengthened his character and fortified his nerves, and though Hilda expected every moment that he would sink down as he had done on that memorable day, almost unconscious with pain, he nevertheless sat upright in his seat, bracing himself, as it were, against the huge wave of his misfortunes, which had risen from the depths of the tomb to overtake him and annihilate his happiness in a single moment. His comprehension seemed to grow clearer, and he grasped the whole frightful hopelessness of his enormous calamity.
Hilda understood it too, in a measure, but she thought only of his suffering, and not of any possible consequences to herself. With womanly tenderness, she took her handkerchief, and pressed the cool linen to his wet brow, while she could see his broad chest heaving and hear the dull, short sound of his breath between his grinding teeth. Her arms went round him, and tried to draw him to her, but he sat upright like a figure of stone, unbending as a block of granite.
‘Greif!’ she cried at last. ‘Speak to me, dear one—’
‘How can I speak to you, whom I have dishonoured?’ he asked, slowly turning his head towards her and yet trying to draw back from her embrace.
‘Dishonoured me! Ah, Greif—’
‘Yes—Hilda, I am no more your husband, than my wretched father was husband to the creature who bore me—who ruined him and me—’