'Why not go and stay at Greifenstein as you both did before? It is more comfortable.'

'I prefer this. There is a better view. I think I will buy the top of the hill over there, and lay the foundation of an observatory. It will be an occupation, and they send me so much money that I do not know what to do with it.'

'I hope you are not going to build a house to live in,' said Greif, suddenly. 'Remember that your home is here.'

'Thank you,' answered Rex.

The words were pleasant to him, for in the last month he had begun to feel an attachment for Sigmundskron which he had never felt for any place before. The mere idea of leaving it was painful to him, and if he must be parted for a time from Greif and Hilda--he coupled their names in his thoughts, and rather obstinately, too--he knew that the time would pa.s.s more quickly in the old castle than anywhere else. At forty years of age, the idea of beginning again the wandering life he had led so long, rambling from one country and capital to another, now spending a year at a University and then six months in Paris, or a winter in St.

Petersburg, never settled, never at home, though at home everywhere--the mere thought was painfully repugnant. To live with Greif and Hilda in their ancient home, to build at last the n.o.ble observatory of which he had often idly dreamed, and to spend the best years of life that remained to him in peaceful study among those he loved, was a prospect infinitely attracting, and apparently most easy of realisation.

When Hilda and Greif were gone, Rex discovered that they were really the central figures in his visions of future happiness. The emptiness they left behind was indescribably dreary. He wondered why he had not experienced the same sensation when he and the baroness had stayed at Greifenstein after the wedding. He had not missed the two so painfully then; indeed he had enjoyed the baroness's society very much, and would not then have been altogether sorry to have been left with her for a longer time. But the month they had spent at Sigmundskron had produced a great change, it seemed. Before that, he had a.s.suredly not been in the habit of thinking so much about Greif and Hilda, nor, in Greifenstein, had he expected to meet them at every turn, in every dusky corner, when he walked through the house alone, as was the case now. It was quite certain that they had not formerly haunted his dreams; whereas now he could not close his eyes without seeing Hilda's face, and Greif's beside it.

Though their absence was more than disagreeable to Rex, he was, on the whole, rather pleased than otherwise when he discovered how much he regretted their presence. Until lately he had never missed anybody, nor cared whether he were alone or in company. He could not have looked forward with so much satisfaction to pa.s.sing the rest of his life with Greif and Hilda if he had not cared for their society. The prospect would have been repugnant instead of attractive in that case, and he would have preferred to build a house of his own. He was delighted at the glimpse of the future afforded him during the past month, and he was satisfied with the position he was to occupy in the house. He was old enough to love Greif and Hilda in a somewhat fatherly way, though he looked so young. After all, a man of forty could be father to a girl of nineteen, and it was a pleasant privilege to call her cousin Hilda, and to treat her as a sort of niece. Rex supposed that before long his brown hair and beard would begin to turn grey. He looked forward to feeling himself older and wiser than Hilda and Greif, as indeed he might, and he intended to take great interest in the education of their children, who would look up to him as to something between a grandfather and an uncle in ten or fifteen years' time. It would be very delightful to teach Hilda's children--and Greif's, and there was nothing to hinder Rex from building his observatory if he pleased.

Of one thing he grew very certain, namely, that life without Greif or Hilda would be intolerable. Fortunately he found sympathy in this thought on the part of Frau von Sigmundskron, who missed the two as much as Rex, though perhaps in a very different way. They talked of nothing but what should be done when the pair came back at Christmas, unless the post had brought one of those short, businesslike efforts of affection which happy couples send to their parents during the first months of wedded bliss. On those occasions the two sat together discussing the letter as long as there remained in it a word to talk about. Rex would then launch out into vivid descriptions of the town or country whence the news came, supplying every deficiency in the correspondence out of the inexhaustible stores of his memory, telling his companion all that Hilda and Greif must have seen and done, even though they had forgotten to give a full account of their proceedings. The baroness enjoyed these conversations quite as much as though she had received longer letters, but Rex was conscious of an odd impulse to fill up by an effort of his imagination the numerous lacunae in the sequence of news. He was aware that his disappointment when no letter came was greater than he had expected, and that it increased until he felt a positive, painful anxiety at the hour when the mail came in.

But though the days sometimes dragged wearily along, they were over at last, and Hilda and Greif came back. They received a great ovation on their return, and the Christmas that followed was a merry one, but no one was so glad to welcome the two home again as Rex. His face was so much changed by his delight that Greif hardly recognised him for the man he had left behind three months ago. As had sometimes happened, though very rarely, his eyes had lost their stony impenetrability for a few moments; the pupils dilated and were full of light; and there was an extraordinary brilliancy about Rex's usually unruffled features, which surprised Hilda herself.

Rex looked at her, too, and he saw that a transformation had taken place. He could not tell whether he preferred the girlish simplicity of three months ago, or the fuller beauty of to-day. The dress made a difference, also, for though simple still, and severe, what Hilda wore was the work of more skilful hands than her own or old Berbel's. There was the difference between unintentional simplicity, and the simplicity of a refined taste, as in Hilda's self Rex would soon discover the change from the girl to the woman.

Rex did not conceal his gladness, and it was in itself a source of pleasure to the two who had come back. During the first few days there was endless festivity and endless talk about all they had seen and done.

There was much to say on both sides, and small time to say it, for it was the Christmas season, and the Sigmundskrons were determined to make it a happy one for all their people. But when Twelfth Night was gone by, and quietness descended upon the four occupants of the castle, they found that they had succeeded in telling each other much more than they supposed, in the intervals between Christmas trees, and dinners for the peasantry, and all the pleasant noise and excitement of the Yuletide.

Very soon their lives dropped into peaceful channels again, and upon the tidal wave of merriment succeeded the calm flow of an untroubled existence. There was no end to the work to be done upon the castle, and Greif entered upon it with boundless enthusiasm, while Rex helped him at every turn with his extraordinary knowledge of all matters in which exactness was required. Hilda marvelled at his amazing versatility and at the apparent depth of his information upon so many matters. No question came amiss to him connected with the restoration, from the customs and mode of life of the mediaeval Germans to the calculation of a Gothic arch or a winding staircase.

'You seem to know everything,' said Hilda one day, unable to conceal her admiration.

'It is a matter of habit,' Rex answered vaguely, whereat she laughed, scarcely knowing why.

'I mean,' said Rex, explaining himself, 'that you are in the habit of supposing that a man only understands his own profession, whereas if he really does understand it, he ought not to find any difficulty in acquiring the rudiments of any other which does not need special gifts.

Everything which depends upon mathematics is more or less connected in a mathematical mind.'

'That sounds very reasonable. I wish I had a mathematical mind.'

'You have what is better,' answered Rex, looking at her.

'What is that?'

'Many things. Ask Greif.'

His tone had changed, and he spoke so seriously that she was surprised, for she did not in the least comprehend his mood. It was strange to himself, and he afterwards wondered whether his own words had any sense in them, unwilling to allow that he had spoken out of the fulness of an admiration he had no right to express. He did not say, even to himself, that she was the most beautiful woman, the best, the kindest he had ever known, but at the thought of what he would have said in his own heart, had all restraint been removed, he felt a shock, such as a man feels who strikes his hand against some unexpected sharp object in the dark, and draws back, groping his way carefully lest he should hurt himself again.

Certain it was that his admiration of Hilda threatened to pa.s.s the bounds by which admiration of any sort is separated from the stronger feelings that lie beyond it. But as he perceived this in the course of time, he explained it away by telling himself that it was natural and harmless. Loving his brother as he did, it would have been strange if he had not felt something like devotion for the woman who had saved his brother's life. It would have been astonishing if he had not felt a most sincere affection for her, if he had not been willing to sacrifice anything for her.

It was an odd sort of devotion at first, for it grew up like a tender plant surrounded on all sides by sharp p.r.i.c.ks, straight in self-defence, and sensitive by avoiding all contact with things hurtful. Rex became conscious of its growth, and was surprised to find anything so delicate and beautiful in his own heart, where such beauties had never grown, or had budded only to wither prematurely, leaving the ground more dry and arid and unpromising than before. It was as though a soft light had dawned in his soul and was gradually brightening into day. From having distrusted himself a little at first, he put an unbounded faith in his own heart since he saw what it contained. He would even talk to Greif by the hour together of Hilda's perfections, vying with her husband in discovering new things to praise, and utterly happy in the freedom of speaking about her which he thus enjoyed.

He fancied that he looked upon her almost as though she had been his daughter, and he imagined that he understood stories he had read, and cases he had known in his own experience, where such pure affections were concerned. He, who was far from imaginative by nature, made romances in the air, in which he fancied that he had once been married to a woman he had loved to distraction--a woman not unlike Hilda, perhaps--and that Hilda herself was the daughter of that union, all there was left to remind him of her who was dead. There was something oddly fantastic in the thought, which satisfied him for a time, and made his life seem full of a love, tender, regretful, expressing itself in a boundless devotion to the one object which recalled it.

And the dead woman grew in his fancy, until she became very lifelike.

He could remember how he had closed her darkened eyes, and smoothed her yellow hair, how he had buried her on a dark winter's day, among the fir trees, and how through long years he had mourned for her, while Hilda was a little child at his knee. It was all fancy, but it was very vivid.

Then he could go back still farther, he could recall the sound of her voice, for Hilda's own reminded him of it, and out of the misty echoes of past time he could reconstruct conversations, phrases of love, words full of meaning. He remembered their first meeting, in an ancient castle in a distant land--he had been a guest in her father's house--so long ago. He remembered how they had ridden together so often through a dim forest, and how the echo of the horses' hoofs amongst the ringing trees had broken upon the silvery music of her voice. It all came back to him, the scene, the colour of the shadows; the snort of the horses, the curves of her figure as she sat so straight in the saddle, the silences that said more than words. Then the scene changed, and they were upon a moonlit lawn in summer. He was standing still, and she was coming towards him through the misty light. His heart beat fast. Slender and tall as a fair spirit she advanced. Her two hands were held out before her, and found his. Face to face they stood in silence, their gaze meeting; was it to be, or not? Then, in that wonderful moment, he felt his own hard eyes soften and saw the warm light in hers. Not a word was spoken, as his arms went round her--then they turned and walked together upon the dark, dewless gra.s.s, beneath the summer moon.

And again, he was with her upon a balcony at night. In the warm dusk he could see the whiteness of her face, and the outline of her figure.

She had said something, and he had felt the hot blood surging to his forehead, and falling again, as by its own weight, upon his heart. All at once he had answered her with such words as he had not guessed a man could speak, for they had broken forth in a pa.s.sionate eloquence, unrestrained and fresh with young life, as words first spoken can be. He could not always remember them now; the heartfelt ring of them waked him from his sleep, sometimes; and again, in the midst of the occupations of the day, the stirring echo of their music filled the room in a moment and was gone before he could seize it, or was blown into his ear by the clear breeze that swept the valley.

The dead woman was alive--the woman who had never lived save in his brain--and Hilda was growing to be like her. Rex watched them both, her whom he saw with open eyes, and her who was present with him the instant his eyes were closed. No daughter was ever so exact an image of the mother who had borne her; line for line, the features grew to be the same, shade for shade the colour of the one became the colour of the other, coil for coil the yellow hair of both was wound alike upon the n.o.ble head. And the love of this dead woman, who had never breathed, but whom he had buried with such bitter tears and such heartbroken grief, filled his whole being and twined itself through all the mazes of his complex nature, till no action of his life was independent of it, and no thought free from its all-dominating influence.

In the first beginnings of this creation of his fancy he had found such peace and such sweet melancholy satisfaction that he had encouraged its growth and had tried to persuade himself of its reality. And the reality had come, so far as it can come to anything wholly built up in the imagination. It had also brought with it its consequences, unless it could be said to be a consequence in itself. Rex's devotion to Hilda increased with every day, as she seemed to him to be more and more like the woman he had loved, the mother he had imagined for her in place of her own. For it was out of Hilda herself that his love for a shadow had grown to be what it was, and the shadow itself was but the reflection of Hilda's present brightness upon the misty emptiness of his own past life.

Rex was very happy. The dreams that filled the hours did not hinder his actions; on the contrary, the latter seemed to be supplied at last with the purpose they had lacked during forty years, the purpose to honour the love that was in him, and to please Hilda, the outcome of that love.

All that he did seemed to acquire directness and perfection of detail, all that he said was dignified by a tender thought for this child of an adored vision, until those who lived with him were amazed at his wisdom and kindness, and wondered whether the world had ever held his like before.

The busy months went by and the summer was at hand. Much had been done to Sigmundskron, but there was work for years to come, before it should be what Greif dreamed of. But one day in June the work ceased suddenly, and all was hushed and still. The servants trod noiselessly and spoke in whispers, and Rex found himself left to his own devices with no companion but the dear idol of his fancy. The whole household life seemed suspended.

It was the silence of a great happiness. On that fair June morning Hilda had borne her husband an heir to Sigmundskron.

CHAPTER XXV

Berbel, transformed into the housekeeper of Sigmundskron, was busy with the preparations for the christening. A year of uninterrupted prosperity had made her a trifle more sleek than before, and though she still affected a Spartan simplicity of dress, her frock was made of better materials than formerly, and her cap was adorned with black ribbands of real silk.

The day was warm, and Berbel came out into the court to breathe the air.

As she stood at the door trying to remember whether she had forgotten anything, a man entered the gate and strode across the pavement. It was Wastei, and he carried in his hand a magnificent string of trout, threaded by the gills upon a willow withe. He bore his burden very carefully, and it was clear that he had gone home to dress himself after catching the trout and before coming to the castle, for he was splendidly arrayed in a pair of new leather breeches and he wore a velvet coat, the like of which had not been seen in Sigmundsdorf within the memory of man, for, like Berbel's ribbands, it was of real silk.

Berbel eyed him curiously. She had an odd liking for the fellow.

'G.o.d greet you, Frau Berbel,' said Wastei with far more politeness than he vouchsafed to most people, high or low. 'I have brought these fish for the christening feast, and I have seen worse.'

Berbel took the willow wand from his hand, tried the weight, counted the trout with a housewife's eye, tried the weight again, and then nodded approvingly.

'They are good fish,' she said, looking them over once more.

Wastei drew a bright red handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully wiped his sinewy brown hands. Then without further ceremony he sat down upon the stone curb at the corner of the steps, as though he had done his business and meant to rest himself without paying any more attention to Berbel. She liked him for his independence and taciturnity. Moreover, in the old days of starving poverty, Wastei had done her many a good service she had never been able to reward, and had brought many a plump hare and many a brace of quails to the empty larder, swearing that he had come by them honestly, and offering to exchange them for a little mending to his tattered clothes. Berbel used to suspect that Wastei knew more of the nakedness of the land than he admitted, and that he risked more than one dangerous bit of poaching out of secret pity for the poor ladies who were known to buy so little food in the village. They were better off now, both she and Wastei, but as she looked at the broad expanse of black velvet that covered his square, flat back, she remembered the days when he had come ragged to the back door to throw down a good meal of game upon the kitchen table, going off the next minute with nothing but a bit of black bread in prospect for his supper.

'I will take them to the baron myself,' said Berbel.

Wastei looked up as though he had supposed she was already gone in.

'Thank you, Frau Berbel,' he answered.

Five minutes later she returned, carrying a black bottle, a gla.s.s and something small shut in the palm of her hand.

'The baron thanks you and sends you this,' she said, holding out a gold piece. 'And I have brought you this,' she added, filling the gla.s.s, 'because I know you like it.'

'Luck!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Wastei, slipping the twenty-mark piece into the pocket of his waistcoat, and watching the white liquor as it rose nearer to the brim.

He took the gla.s.s, twisted it in his fingers, held it to the sun, and then looked again at Berbel.