‘His hair is white—and it is for me!’ Hilda whispered as she leaned upon her husband’s shoulder.
Rex’s quick ear caught the words, though they were scarcely audible. He looked up, and his stony eyes grew strangely soft and expressive.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know it—but it is not strange. I am glad it is so, for it was in a good cause. You are right, Hilda, my sister—the hour of destiny is passed. It has left its marks, but they are pledges that it will not return. The new life begins to-day—give me your hands, both of you—do mine tremble so? It is with happiness, not with pain—oh, not with pain, do not think it! Give me a share in your lives, since you will. I take it gladly, and you shall not regret it. You have my word that you shall never feel one sting when you look at me, you, my brother, you, my sister. I will be a brother to you both, a son to her you both call mother, though, in truth, I am too old for that—but she must be a mother to us all, in place of what none of us have ever had, save Hilda. And I kiss your hand, dear sister—so—it is the pledge—I take yours in mine, brother, and I know you, and you know me, and we can look each into the other’s eyes and say I trust, and know that we trust well. There—it is done, and we are joined, we three, for good or evil, to stand together if there be strife still in store for us who have striven so much, to live in brotherly love and peace, if peace is to be ours, until the grey years come and we are laid side by side together.’
‘So be it, and may God bless us all,’ said Greif.
‘God will bless us,’ answered Hilda softly.
One more pressure of the hands and then Greif and Hilda turned and went away. The door closed softly behind them, and Rex was alone.
He went and took up the revolver that Hilda had laid upon the table, looked at it long, and then placed it in the drawer, and turned the key upon it. Once more he sat down where he had sat so long, and buried his face in his hands, and pressed them to his aching eyes.
The greater sacrifice was accomplished now, and he knew that it was over, and that his years would be in peace, for all was clear and honest and true as the day. He looked up at last, upwards as though searching for something above him, straining his weary sight for a vision that was not granted him.
‘I have lived,’ he said aloud, in a strange voice. ‘I had never lived before, never in all this time. And if they are right, if You are there, You, their God—then bless me too, with them, and make me like them! Is that a prayer? Why then, I will say Amen, and be it so! It is the only prayer I could ever pray now, to be like them, to be like them—yes, only that, to be like them!’
And Rex meant what he said. He was incapable of seeing that he himself had done anything more than his plain and honourable duty. He knew that he had overcome what had seemed most base in his own eyes, but he would have been amazed if any one had suggested that any credit was due to him for that, since he had but obeyed the law of honour, the only law he knew or recognised. In his own estimation he was not less contemptible for having harboured a thought which would have been dishonourable only if it had been base and gross, but which, being so pure and sacred, was but the natural expression of a noble heart. But he saw in Hilda and Greif a generosity which seemed boundless when confronted with the evil of which he judged himself guilty, and he felt that genuine gratitude which only a high-souled being can feel in such a case.