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Their features were the same, both had the same sinewy firmness of build and the same eyes; but Greif's close-cut golden hair and delicate moustache gave him a brilliancy his father had never possessed. He seemed to bring the light with him into the deep shade of the glen where they met.
As the charge exploded, the bullet went crashing through the mirror, and the weapon was wrenched away by other hands than Greif's, whiter and smaller, but scarcely less strong. Hilda had seen the danger and had joined in the struggle at the critical moment, just in time to save Rex from a dangerous wound, if not from actual death.
At first she did not understand Greif's readiness to believe that this evil deed had been his father's, but presently, as she thought over the whole matter, it struck her that she had no reason for acquitting the one rather than the other, so far as evidence was concerned, but that she had wished Greif's father innocent for Greif's own sake.
She thought little of Greif's determination to persist, if only Hilda could seem more glad to see him, than sympathising in his misfortunes. With a woman's wholesale faith in woman, she believed utterly in the power of one of Hilda's glances to keep Greif at Sigmundskron for ever. Especially good women believe in all other women, more than those who are neither notably good nor notably bad.
He would have acted and talked with more diplomacy and less outward energy, though with the same inward conviction, and it is by no means impossible that Frau von Sigmundskron's first intention might in such a case have remained unchanged, and that she would have gently acquiesced in Greif's proposal to give up the marriage. But there was no guile in the baroness, and but little in Greif himself.
'Can I go to Rex and tell him that he must not only be civil but must be a friend to you? 'You are jesting, she answered. 'But it is just what I would do in earnest what I will do, if you will let me. He would understand that. I would say to him, Herr Rex, you are Greif's only relation besides ourselves.
His manner contrasted so strongly with Greif's, as to make her wonder whether he were in reality much affected or not. 'I will not stay, she said. 'I only came to see how you were, and whether I could do anything for you. 'You are very kind. I have all I need, and more. Have you seen Greif? 'Yes. He has slept and I think he is safe. At first I feared lest his mind should be affected.
To-day he saw the necessity of applying his intelligence to the alleviation of Greif's sorrow and to the preservation of Greif's existence, endangered by such a blow. In a few weeks at the latest, his own sufferings would acquire an objective interest, and would become so many data for study in the great case of all humanity. Rex could never have been a hero.
She has not too many pleasures of any sort, and meeting you is one of the greatest. The blush in Greif's cheek deepened. Again he set his feet firmly before him and braced himself in his seat as though to resist a shock. He hated himself for betraying his feeling in his face, and wished it were night.
If that disaster occurred, if by Greif's impatient desire to be generous to the extreme limit of what honour could demand, or by Hilda von Sigmundskron's possible lack of affection or of wisdom, the two were to be permanently separated, Rex confessed that he should not know what to do.
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