Karl overtook Greif before the latter had walked half a mile. The rapid
decision, the brisk walk and the biting air had contributed to alleviate
the intolerable pain to which he had momentarily succumbed, and as he
lay back among the furs he began to fancy that he should not be ill
after all, and to regret the scarcely decent haste he had employed in
making his escape. But when he tried to think over what had happened he
found that his brain was confused and his memories indistinct. Of one
thing only he was quite sure, that he had accomplished his intention and
had renounced Hilda for ever. With the emotion caused by the thought the
pain seized him again and he lay almost unconscious in his seat while
Karl guided the horses carefully along the steep road. Before many miles
were passed, Greif was aware of nothing but the indistinct shapes of
trees and rocks that slipped in and out through the field of his aching
vision. Everything else was a blank, and the least attempt at thought
became agonising. At one time he could not remember whether he was going
towards his home or away from it; at another, he was convinced that
some one was in the carriage with him, either his father or Frau von
Sigmundskron, and he tried vaguely to reconcile the fact of their
presence with his inability to see their shapes.
At last he knew that he was being lifted from the carriage, and he made
an effort to straighten himself and to walk upright. But strong arms
were round him and bore him through bright halls where the low sun shot
in level rays through stained windows, and along broad dim corridors
that seemed as though they would never end, until at last he was
laid upon a bed in a warm room. There, all at once, as in a dream, he
recognised Rex, who was standing beside him and holding his hand.
‘I must be ill, after all,’ he said faintly.
‘Very,’ answered Rex. ‘Do you know me? Can you tell me what has happened
to you?’
Greif stared at him for a few seconds and then answered with an effort.
‘I have done it,’ he said, and closed his eyes.
After that, he was conscious of nothing more, neither of daylight nor
of darkness, neither of solitude nor of the presence of Rex and of those
who helped him in his incessant care. A day passed, and another, one
physician came, then two, and then a great authority was summoned and
installed himself in the castle, and visited the sick man six times
during the day, and feasted royally in the meanwhile, after the manner
of great authorities, who have an amazing discernment in regard to
the good things of this life, as well as an astonishing capacity for
enjoying them.
All manner of things were done to Greif of which he never knew anything.
He had ice upon his head and burning leaves of mustard on his feet,
he was fed with strange mixtures of wine and soup, of raw meat and
preserves, all of which he swallowed unconsciously without getting any
better. Still he tossed and raved, and moaned and laughed, and cried
like a child and howled like a madman.
The great authority shook his head and pensively drank the old burgundy
that was set before him, partaking of a delicate slice of game between
one sip and another, and thoughtfully cropping the heads of the forced
asparagus when he was tired of the venison. For a long time he and Rex
said little to each other at their meals, and the physician was inclined
to suppose that his companion was a man of merely ordinary intelligence.
One day, however, as Greif grew no better, Rex determined to startle
the good man, by ascertaining what he knew. In order to lead the
conversation he threw out a careless remark about an unsettled question
which he knew to be agitating the scientific world, and concerning which
it was certain that the great doctor would have a firm opinion of his
own. To the astonishment of the latter, Rex disputed the point, at
first as though he cared little, but gradually and with matchless skill
disclosing to his adversary a completeness of information and a keenness
of judgment which fairly took away his breath.
‘You almost convince me,’ said the physician, who had quite forgotten to
help himself a second time to green peas, though they were the first he
had seen that year. ‘Upon my word, Herr Rex, you almost convince me. And
yet you are a very young man.’
‘How old do you think I am?’ inquired Rex with a faint smile.
The doctor examined his face attentively and then looked long at his
hands. He became so much interested that he rose from his seat and came
and scrutinised Rex’s features as though he were studying the points of
an animal.
‘I am amazed,’ he said, as he sat down again and adjusted his napkin
upon his knees. ‘I do not see anything to prove that you are more than
two or three and thirty.’
‘I was forty years old on my last birthday--and I was still a student at
Schwarzburg,’ replied Rex quietly.
‘You have a very fine action of the heart,’ observed the doctor, ‘I
would not have thought it, but your age heals the wound in my vanity.’
Now it is a very singular fact that from that hour the great physician
should have paid more attention to Greif and less to the venison and
asparagus, but it is certainly true that his manner changed, as well as
his conversation, and that he bestowed more care upon his patient than
he had ever given to any sick man since he had become celebrated. Ever
afterwards, he told his learned acquaintances that the only man he had
ever met who gave promise of greatness was a quiet person who lived in
the Black Forest.
Rex had satisfied himself, however, that the doctor knew a great deal,
though he had not a high opinion of medical science in general, and
almost said so. Greif, nevertheless, continued to be very ill indeed,
and his state seemed to go from bad to worse. Rex was anxious, and
watched him and nursed him with unfailing care. He knew well enough
what Grief had meant by the few words he had spoken after he was brought
home, and he knew all that his cousin’s action involved. His reflexions
were not pleasant.
It seemed to him as though fate were about to solve the difficulty by
cutting all the knots at once. If this terrible fever made an end of
Greif, there would be an end also of the house of Greifenstein by
the extinction of the last male descendant. Greif, the penniless and
nameless orphan, would lie beside his father as Greif von Greifenstein,
and the fortune would go in the ordinary course of the law to the
Sigmundskrons, to whom it really belonged. But if Greif recovered and
persisted in refusing to marry Hilda, the greatest injustice would be
done to the widow and her daughter. Rex’s views of right would not be
satisfied if the Sigmundskrons received only a part of the fortune which
was legitimately theirs, and Rex thought with horror of the moment when
he might be obliged to go to Greif and disclose the truth. He was a man
of very strong principles, which were detached from any sort of moral
belief, but it seemed as though his intelligence were conscious of its
failing, in spite of all his reasoning, and were always trying to supply
the lacuna by binding itself to its own rules, to which its faith had
been transferred. He knew perfectly well that if Greif could not be
persuaded that he was acting foolishly it would be necessary to reveal
the secret. Rather than that Greif himself should be made to suffer what
such a revelation implied, it would be almost better that he should die
in his unconscious delirium. Human life, in Rex’s opinion, was not worth
much, unless it afforded a fair share of happiness, and he knew well
enough that Greif could never recover from such a blow. The loss of
fortune would be nothing in comparison with the loss of name, and with
the dishonour to his dead mother’s memory. Rex knew what that meant,
though even he had not been made to bear all that was in store for Greif
in such a case.
In the dim room he looked at his brother’s face. He had grown so much
accustomed to the droning sound of his ceaseless ravings, as hardly to
notice it when he was in the room, though it pursued him whenever he was
alone. He watched Greif’s pale features, and wondered what the result
would be. If Greif died, the lonely man had nothing left to live for.
Greif had come into his life, just when he was beginning to feel with
advancing years that neither fortune nor science can fill the place of
the human affections. As for the love of woman, Rex had never understood
what it meant. He had entangled himself in more than one affair of
little importance, partly from curiosity, partly out of vanity, but in
his experience he had never found a companion in any woman, nor had he
ever known one whom he would not have left at a moment’s notice for the
sake of any one out of half a dozen occupations and amusements which
pleased him better than lovemaking. To this singular absence of emotions
he perhaps owed his youthful looks, at an age when many men are growing
grey and most show signs of stress of weather. He had never cared
for his father’s society, first, because he had lacked all the early
associations of childhood on which alone such affection is often based,
and, secondly, because he had differed from him in all his ideas and
tastes as soon as he had been able to think for himself. Their relations
had always been amicable, for Rex was not a man, even when young, to
quarrel easily over small matters, and old Rieseneck had sent him at an
early age to Germany, supplying him very bountifully with money, in the
belief that he ought to atone in every way for the injury done to his
son by his own disgrace. Beyond a regular correspondence, which had
never savoured much of ardent affection, there had been nothing to unite
the two during many years past. Then Rex had taken the trouble to find
out his cousin, had liked him more and more, and had at last learned
that he was not his cousin but his brother. Now, as he saw him lying
there between life and death, he admitted to himself that he loved him,
and that he took the trouble to remain alive merely for his sake. But
for Greif, that fatal letter would have been enough to make him give it
up.
In truth, the life which Rex had condescended to leave in himself did
not promise well. The physician did his best, which was as good as
any man’s when he chose that it should be, but Greif was daily
losing strength, and the inflammation of the brain showed no signs of
disappearing. It is probable that if he had been thrown with any other
companion than Rex, the great doctor would have shaken his head and
would have announced that there was very little hope. But Rex acted upon
him as a stimulant, and his impenetrable, stony eyes made the physician
feel as though his whole reputation were at stake. The latter even went
to the length of sitting up all night when the patient was at his worst,
a thing he had not done for many a long year, and probably never did
again during his comfortable existence.
Greif was going to die. The doctor had very little doubt of it. In all
his experience he had never known such an obstinate case of meningitis
in a man so young and so strong. The grey morning dawned and found him
and Rex standing upon each side of the bed that looked unnaturally white
in the gloom. Still, Greif was alive, though his moaning had grown very
faint, and his strength was almost gone. Rex held his breath every now
and then, as the sound ceased, fearing lest every moment should be the
last. The doctor tried to make out the time without carrying his
watch to the night-light, failed and returned it to his pocket with a
half-suppressed sigh. He had done all that he could, and yet Rex’s stony
eyes were fixed on him in the early twilight, and his reputation was
at stake. He knew that the thread might break at any moment, but he
believed that if Greif lived until sunrise he would live until noon, and
die about three o’clock in the day.
‘Herr Rex,’ he said quietly, ‘I think you had better send for Frau von
Sigmundskron, if she would wish to see him. You told me he had no other
relation near.’
Rex’s head fell forward upon his breast as though he had received a
blow, though he had known all through the night that this morning might
be the last, and the doctor had told him nothing unexpected. A moment
later he left the room quietly. He was met by a servant before he had
gone far.
‘Tell Karl to put in the Trachener stallions and drive to Sigmundskron
as fast as they can go. He must bring back the baroness before noon.
Your master is dying.’
He would have turned away, but the man detained him with a question he
did not hear at first.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘A messenger has just come from Sigmundskron to inquire,’ the servant
said.
‘I will see him. Give the order to Karl quickly,’ said Rex.
In the hall a queer-looking man was brought to him. He was one of those
thin, wiry, dark and straight-haired men of the Forest who seem to
belong to a race not German, whatever it may be. He wore patched leather
breeches, from the side pocket of which protruded the horn handle of
his long knife. His legs were bare, his shirt open at the neck, his
waistcoat with silver buttons was flung carelessly over one shoulder,
and a small fur cap was thrust back from his forehead, upon which a
few drops of perspiration were visible. His small and piercing eyes met
Rex’s boldly.
‘The baroness sent me to know how the young gentleman was,’ he said,
speaking in the Swabian dialect.
‘Herr von Greifenstein is dying,’ answered Rex gravely.
‘Then I had better go and tell her so,’ said the man, calmly, though his
face fell at the bad news. He was already turning away when Rex stopped
him.
‘Have you come on foot?’ he asked, looking curiously at a fellow who
could run over from Sigmundskron and go back almost without taking
breath.
‘Of course,’ was the answer.
‘Then you can go home in the carriage. I have just ordered it. Give him
something to eat quickly,’ he added, turning to the servant, ‘before
Karl is ready.’
‘I shall be there before your carriage,’ observed the man carelessly.
‘Especially if you will give me a drink of cherry spirits.’
‘Before the carriage?’
‘Not if I stay here,’ said the other. ‘But I can beat your horses by
half an hour at least.’
‘What is your name?’ asked Rex while the servant was gone for the drink.
‘Wastei.’
‘Sebastian, I suppose?’
The man shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he did not care
for such a civilised appellation. Rex took out his purse and gave him
a gold piece, a generosity elicited by his admiration for the fellow’s
powers.
‘Take that, Wastei, and here is your liquor.’
Wastei nodded carelessly, slipped the money into his waistcoat pocket,
drank a quarter of the bottle of cherry spirits at a draught, and
touching his cap was out of the door before Rex could speak again.
‘Did you ever see that fellow before?’ Rex asked of the servant.
‘No, sir,’ the man answered rather stiffly. ‘I am not from these parts.’
Rex returned to Greif’s room with a heavy heart, and found the physician
standing where he had left him, waiting for the sunrise. They both sat
down in silence, watching the face of the dying man, and listening to
his breathing. There was nothing to be done, save to try and make him
swallow some nourishment once in a quarter of an hour.
The dawn brightened slowly, until a soft pink light was reflected from
the snow outside upon the ceiling of the room. It was mid-winter still
and the nights were long and the days short, the sun rising almost as
late as possible and setting suddenly again when the day seemed only
half over. When at last the level eastern rays shot into the chamber,
Rex and the doctor rose and looked at their patient. He was breathing
still, very faintly, and apparently without pain.
‘There is a possibility still,’ said Rex in a low voice.
The physician glanced at him, and suppressed a professional shrug of the
shoulders.
‘We shall see what happens at noon,’ he answered, but the tone of his
voice was sceptical.
To tell the truth he believed that there was no longer any hope
whatever, and so far as any such chance was concerned he would almost
have risked going home at once. Nevertheless he determined to stay to
the very last, partly because his reputation was at stake, partly out
of curiosity to watch Rex at the supreme moment. He suspected that the
latter was in some way profoundly interested in the question of Greif’s
life, though he found it quite impossible to make sure whether his
anxiety proceeded from affection or from some more selfish motive. For
the present, however, he left Rex to himself and went to his own room to
rest an hour or two.
The time passed very slowly. Rex’s nerves were as firm as the rest
of his singularly well-knit constitution, and he was never weary of
fulfilling the mechanical duties of a nurse, which he had refused to
relinquish, during twelve hours at least of each day, though he was
obliged to give his place to an assistant during the remainder of the
time.
In order not to be idle as he sat beside the bed, Rex drew figures and
made calculations in his pocket-book. He seemed to derive considerable
satisfaction from his occupation, for he looked more hopefully at Greif
each time he raised his head, though the latter’s condition showed no
apparent change. His consolation was in reality only transitory, for
when the clock at last struck twelve and he laid his work definitely
aside, it seemed to him that he had been dreaming and that the case was
more desperate than ever. The physician returned and stood beside him,
but he looked at Rex more often than at Greif. At last he laid his hand
upon the younger man’s arm and led him away from the bedside, towards
the open window.
‘Herr Rex, I would say a word to you. I firmly believe that your cousin
will die in a few minutes.’ He spoke in a whisper, and Rex bent his
head, for he thought his companion was right.
‘I have a theory,’ continued the doctor, ‘that people who are dying are
far more conscious of what passes around them than is commonly supposed.
It may be true or it may not. Let us at all events be careful of what we
say to each other.’
Rex nodded gravely, and they returned to the side of the dying man. It
was just mid-day, and Greif was lying on his back, with his eyes open.
The physician bent down and laid his ear to the heart. When he raised
his head again, he looked about the room, somewhat nervously avoiding
Rex’s eyes. All at once his attention was arrested by the sound of
running feet outside, and he glanced quickly at his companion, who had
also heard the noise.
It was the supreme moment, for Greif’s consciousness had returned. As
often happens at the moment of death a violent physical struggle began.
The light returned to his eyes, and the strength to his limbs. He raised
himself upon his hands, and sat up, while the doctor supported him with
one arm, and with a quick movement put brandy to his lips. It was the
work of an instant, and it all happened while Rex was crossing the room.
Suddenly, as the doctor watched him, his eyes fixed themselves. In
the next instant, he thought, their light would break; and the body he
supported would collapse and fall back for ever. It was the last gasp.
Then a ringing voice broke the silence, just as Rex had his hand upon
the latch. ‘I will, I tell you--he is mine!’
The door was flung wide open, and a woman entered the room. Rex had a
strange impression of golden hair and gleaming eyes passing him like a
flash, like the leap of a lioness springing to defend her young.
The doctor looked up in astonishment. Before he could help himself he
was thrust ruthlessly aside, and Greif was in other arms than his. Hilda
bent down as she held him. The fixed stare changed, while the doctor was
craning his neck to see what would happen, but the light did not go out,
nor did the pupils turn white and dead.
‘Hilda! Hilda! Hilda!’ His voice was faint but clear. One moment longer
he gazed into her face and then sank quietly back upon her arm, with a
smile upon his parted lips, his fingers seeking her hand until they lay
quite still in hers. He was so quiet that Hilda was terrified. With a
low and piteous moan she sank upon her knees beside the bed. It was a
cry like nothing those present had ever heard. The physician understood,
and bent down to her.
‘I think we had better be very quiet,’ he said. ‘You will frighten him.’
Hilda stared wildly into his face, and saw there an expression that
transfixed her with astonishment. Slowly, as though not daring to face
the sight, she turned her eyes towards Greif. There was a faint colour
in his sunken cheeks, and he was breathing regularly. Hilda pressed her
hands to her breast with all her might to smother the cry of joy that
almost broke her heart.
The baroness was standing at the foot of the bed with Rex, unconscious
of the tears that streamed from her eyes, her hands clasped before her
as though in prayer. She looked like the figure of a sainted woman of
old. As for Rex himself, he was trembling a little and was conscious
that if he had attempted to speak he would not have heard his own voice.
But otherwise his outward demeanour betrayed nothing of what was passing
within him. He knew as well as the physician that Greif had survived the
most dangerous moment and that he would in all probability recover, and
he knew that if Hilda’s sudden entrance had not given a new impulse
to the ebbing life, all would have been over by that time. For a few
seconds he was scarcely conscious, though he looked calmer and colder
than the doctor himself. He saw nothing but Greif, and his impression of
Hilda’s appearance was no clearer than it had been when she had rushed
past him at the door with a gleam like a meteor.
Half an hour later, Greif was asleep. If all went well he might remain
in this state for any length of time from twelve to twenty-four hours.
Hilda had been prevailed upon to leave the room with her mother. The
assistant took his place by the bedside, and Rex was with the doctor in
the adjoining apartment.
‘Science is a very pretty plaything,’ said the great authority, stroking
his grey beard thoughtfully. ‘You know so much, Herr Rex, that you and
I can afford to look at each other like the augurs and laugh, for
we certainly know nothing at all. I would have wagered my reputation
against a hospital assistant’s pay, that our friend had not sixty
seconds of life in him, when that young lady appeared, like a fiery
whirlwind, and caught him back to earth in the nick of time.’
‘Science unfortunately does not dispose of such young ladies,’ answered
Rex with a smile. ‘They are not in the pharmacopoeia.’
‘She is the most extraordinary one I ever saw,’ observed the doctor.
‘There is a vitality in her presence that affected me like electricity
in a water bath. She has eyes like Sigmund the Volsung--perhaps he was
her ancestor, since her name is Sigmundskron.’
‘He is said to have been,’ laughed Rex.
‘I can quite believe it. Now I assure you that I thought it was all
over. His heart has been very badly strained, and recently, and such a
case of meningitis I have rarely seen. Of course he had the advantage of
careful treatment; but you may treat and treat as you like, if the heart
is weak and nervous and strained, it may stop while the rest of the body
has strength enough left to go on for weeks. I suppose they are engaged
to be married?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you hear her cry out that she would come in? Her mother’s excellent
propriety would have kept her out. But the young lady knew better than
any of us how to save his life.’
Rex did not answer at once, and when he did, he turned the subject. Soon
afterwards he went away, for he felt that he must be alone in order to
think over what had happened and to regain his natural equanimity.
He had not the slightest doubt but that Greif would now recover quickly,
and it seemed very probable that in that case he would no longer
hesitate to marry Hilda. At the thought of her, Rex experienced a
disagreeable sensation which even he could not understand at first.
Hitherto, his chief preoccupation had been the marriage, and scarcely an
hour had passed, so long as he had hoped that Greif would live, in which
he had not contrasted the happiness in store for his brother, if he took
Hilda, with the misery he would have to encounter if he persisted in his
quixotic determination.
And now that Rex had seen this girl, of whom he had heard and thought
so much during the last ten days, he wished it were possible that Greif
might remain Greif without her love. The thought was so selfish and
seemed so unworthy in his own eyes that Rex concentrated his mind in an
attempt to explain it.
In the first place, he felt a curious disappointment in the midst of
his rejoicing over Greif’s improvement. He himself had been untiring,
faithful, by day and night, in watching over and taking care of the only
human being he loved in the world. He wanted no man’s gratitude, but he
had longed earnestly for the satisfaction of saving Greif himself, of
feeling that his first attempt at living for another, instead of for his
own individual advantage, had been crowned with success. He had spared
no fatigue, and he had suffered every varying torture of anxiety and
doubtful hope to the end. And yet, when the end was reached, Greif was
dying. Neither Rex’s care nor Rex’s devotion could have kept him from
slipping over the boundary. Then the door had opened, a woman had
entered, and Greif had revived at the very moment of extinction. A
bright-haired girl, with gleaming eyes, had done in one second what
neither the physician’s science nor Rex’s loving watchfulness could have
hoped to do. To a man who has cared little for women and has thought
much of himself, it is humiliating to see a girl accomplish by her
mere presence what all his intelligence and energy and forethought have
failed to bring about.
Then again, Rex saw that in the future there was nothing for Greif
but Hilda. Rex might be swept out of existence, but so long as Hilda
remained, Greif would merely feel a passing regret for the man he
believed to be his cousin, a regret which Hilda’s love would help him to
outlive in a few weeks, or months, at the most. He hated himself for his
selfishness, and realised that a new phase of his life had begun that
day.
The impulses and impressions that beset him were only transitory and not
likely to affect his conduct. His fondness for Greif was such that he
would certainly rejoice honestly over his marriage and feel the most
genuine hopes for his happiness. The only trace the passing hour would
leave with him would be an unexpressed antipathy for Hilda. He knew,
or he thought that he knew, how easily his systematic habits of thought
could conquer such a tendency and reason it away into emptiness, and he
went downstairs to make the acquaintance of his brother’s future wife
with the fullest determination to like her for Greif’s sake, and never
again to submit to a frame of mind which was contemptible if it was not
utterly base. Could anything be more inconsistent than to let his joy
at the prospect of his brother’s recovery be clouded, because the result
was not wholly due to himself? Could anything be more absurdly foolish
than to conceive a dislike for a woman whom Greif must marry to be saved
from ruin and shame?