Hilda's mother would certainly not have had the
least doubt how to act, for she would have died rather than give her
daughter to a man of illegitimate birth. She would have offered him his
fortune, no doubt, for she was a noble and generous woman, but he would
have refused to take anything. That at least would not have cost him a
pang. As for the rest, his course would have been clear enough.
But now, it was a very different matter. His conscience still told him
to go to Frau von Sigmundskron and tell all, but the consideration of
the consequences appalled him. He knew better even than Hilda herself,
what a sacrifice the good lady had made in regard to the name, and what
importance she attached to it. She was perfectly happy in the existing
condition of things; to tell her would be to destroy her happiness for
ever, to the last day of her life. Greif felt that if he were in her
place he should not want to know the truth, since all reparation was
now utterly impossible. And yet, to conceal it looked like a crime, or
at least like an action of bad faith. Could he meet the white-haired
lady who loved him so well and who had built such hopes upon him, could
he meet her daily, and call her mother, as she loved to be called, and
yet feel that he was deceiving her, that he had defiled the name she
had given him, and that he was living in possession of all that the law
made hers? It might be true that all would be Hilda's some day, and
that in the end no harm would be effected because it would go to
Hilda's son.
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