CHAPTER XX

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 succ.u.mbed, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 a.s.sociations 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 b.u.t.tons 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.