Hilda's children would be the grandchildren of a
murderer. Old Greifenstein had not ended his days in a shameful prison,
merely because he had found courage to take his own life quickly. But
if he had done the deed he was a common murderer, and the moral result
was the same, whether he were alive or dead; the indelible disgrace
rested upon his son, and would brand the lives of his son's sons after
him. Hilda loved Greif, and Greif loved Hilda, but that was no
argument. Better that Hilda should drag out a solitary and childless
existence than be happy under such a name; far better that Greif should
submit to half a century of lonely and loveless years, than get
children whose names should perpetuate the remembrance of a monstrous
crime. Hilda would suffer, but suffering was the lot of mankind. The
baroness wondered sadly whether her daughter's disappointment could
possibly equal what she herself had borne on that day when her gallant
soldier-husband had been shot down in battle. Could Hilda's sorrow be
like her own? Even if it were, Hilda must bear it rather than take such
a name--unless, indeed, old Greifenstein had been innocent of his
wife's death. No one could know that except Rex, and would he answer
her question? In her horror of the whole situation she wished that she
might go back to Sigmundskron and end her life in barely decent poverty
with Hilda, and never again think of the marriage. But her rigid sense
of duty reproached her for such a thought, which made her feel as
though she were trying to lay down the responsibility that had fallen
to her lot.
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