‘It may be in heaven—’
‘And it is on earth. It is love that has made us what we are, by Heaven’s help. It is neither man nor law, for my love is beyond all laws or men, save you! And this thing, what is it? A voice from the dead cries in our ears that we are not what we are, what I know we are, because a deed of shame was done long years ago of which we knew nothing, nor guessed anything until this moment. Is that justice; is that the law you fear and respect, the law you will allow to come between you and me? There is a better law than that, my beloved, the law that binds me to you with bands of steel, for good or ill, for shame or fame, for honour or dishonour—’
‘Ah—the dishonour of it, Hilda, the dishonour!’
‘The dishonour of what? Of a bit of paper, of a dead woman’s sin and miserable death? Is that all? Or is it for name, or no name? And if it be that, what then? Do you think that if you were but a trooper in the ranks, calling yourself by any meaningless syllables that it crossed your mind to choose, if you were the poorest soldier that ever drew sword, do you think that I would not follow you, and work for you and slave for you, and live as I could, or starve, rather than leave you for one day, a thousand times rather than be Hilda von Sigmundskron and heir to all the wealth of the Greifensteins, as that thing says I am? Could all the laws you talk of prevent me from doing that? And you talk of my dishonour through you! I would beg for you, I would toil for you, I would wear out my body and my soul to get you bread—oh, I would almost sell the hope of heaven for your dear sake! And you say that because you have found this paper I am not your wife! A bit of paper, Greif, between you and me—a bit of paper on the one hand and my love on the other, with all it means, with all that harm or pain to you could make it mean, does make it mean, now and for ever! Oh, my beloved, my beloved, have you loved me so long without knowing what love means?’
She would have twined her arm about his neck, but he hid his face in his hands and would not move. To himself, he seemed the basest of mankind, absolutely innocent as he was of every thought or intention of evil. He cursed his weakness in having yielded long ago, in having broken down into unconsciousness, to wake again, weak and enfeebled by his illness, no longer able to break through the spell that drew him towards her. He called himself, in his heart, a traitor, a coward, a weakling, a miserable wretch without strength, or faith, or honour. There were no bounds to his self-abasement, no depths to which he did not sink in his self-judgment. He recalled that morning eighteen months ago when he had come over to Sigmundskron to fight the battle of honour, he remembered the agony of that bitter struggle, the triumph of his heart when he had made the last desperate effort and had gone forth victorious, though the fever was already on him, and he could scarcely see the road under his feet. He reproached himself bitterly with having yielded after winning such a fight, with having stooped to do the bidding of love, after having trampled down every loving instinct and every tender thought within him, in the proud consciousness of doing right for right’s sake only. If he had but been brave still when his body was so weak, all that now was could not have been. He would have cared for neither name nor fame, still less for fortune, without Hilda. But he had yielded, he had grafted the infamy of his birth upon the spotless line of her he loved, and fate had done the rest. The relentless destiny which had overtaken his father, his mother and his brother, had tracked him down and struck him within the boundaries of the false paradise his weakness had built up. He said to himself that he, too, must die, for he was the last and the lowest of living men.
‘Will you not be persuaded, Greif?’ asked Hilda, after a long pause. ‘Do you not see that I am right, and that you are wrong—wrong only in this?’
‘I see nothing,’ he answered, ‘unless it be that I have brought the most irretrievable dishonour upon all I love, as dishonour was brought upon me by him who loved me best.’
‘And if I refuse to be dishonoured, what then?’
‘What then? I do not know what then,’ he answered half absently, not understanding her thoughts.
‘Will you dishonour me in spite of yourself, in spite of my love?’