‘Greif—sweetheart, beloved, are you mad?’
‘Mad? No! The merciful unhinging of that rack of torture which should be my mind, God has denied me. Mad? It were better, for your sake. Mad? I know not what I say. You are not my wife, nor Sigmund, Sigmund, nor I Sigmundskron, nor Greifenstein, nor Hilda’s husband, nor anything that I wot of—save a nameless vagabond who has dishonoured Hilda—’
‘Greif—for the love of Heaven—’
‘Ay, I must speak, and quickly. It is better that you should know all the truth from these lips, foul from their birth—that have kissed yours, though they be not worthy to eat the dust in your path—these lips that kissed that vile thing they called my mother, and that spoke words of sorrow, and uttered cries of grief, at a death too decent for such a being—no, let me speak, take your pure hands from me—I am not your husband! By a name that was never mine, I took your name—thank God you have it still! Your marriage is no marriage, your child is nameless as I am—do you know how the law would call me? One Greif, the bastard son of a certain Herr von Greifenstein and of a woman known as Clara Kurtz—that is the designation of all my honours, that is the description of your child’s father, of the man you have called husband for twelve months and one day! The curse of God in Heaven on that wretch—she was not woman—may the furies of hell not tire of tormenting her accursed soul throughout all ages—yes—I mean my mother, I mean every word I say—I would say more if I knew how! She has done all this—she brought my father to his death, my brave old father, whom I loved, and she has brought me to shame worse than death; and worse than shame or death to me, she has brought dishonour upon the only creature left me to love—oh, death was made too easy for her by those merciful men, they were a thousand times too pitiful, too kind!’
He paused, trembling in every limb with the wrathful passion for which words alone were no satisfaction. Hilda was startled at the violence of his language, and alarmed by the furious look in his eyes, but actual fear was too foreign to her nature to influence her. She understood, now, however, what had escaped her before, namely that he believed their marriage to have been no marriage at all in law. Then her love spoke out, softly at first and with a gentle accent.
‘Greif, my beloved—let them rest in their graves! They cannot harm us.’
‘Not harm us?’ he cried. ‘Do you know that every word I have told you is true—that the curse of that dead woman will pursue us to the end? Do you understand that we are not married man and wife?’
‘That is not true,’ answered Hilda. ‘God made us man and wife—’
‘Ay—but the law—’
‘What is the law to us? Do we not love? Is not that law?’