Greifenstein, page 389 by Francis Marion Crawford
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und of his breath between his grinding teeth. Her arms went round him, and tried to draw him to her, but he sat upright like a figure of stone, unbending as a block of granite.
'Greif!' she cried at last. 'Speak to me, dear one--'
'How can I speak to you, whom I have dishonoured?' he asked, slowly turning his head towards her and yet trying to draw back from her embrace.
'Dishonoured me! Ah, Greif--'
'Yes--Hilda, I am no more your husband, than my wretched father was husband to the creature who bore me--who ruined him and me--'
'Greif--sweetheart, beloved, are you mad?'
'Mad? No! The merciful unhinging of that rack of torture which should be my mind, God has denied me. Mad? It were better, for your sake. Mad? I know not what I say. You are not my wife, nor Sigmund, Sigmund, nor I Sigmundskron, nor Greifenstein, nor Hilda's husband, nor anything that I wot of--save a nameless vagabond who has dishonoured Hilda--'
'Greif--for the love of Heaven--'
'Ay, I must speak, and quickly. It is better that you should know all the truth from these lips, foul from their birth--that have kissed yours, though they be not worthy to eat the dust in your path--these lips that kissed that vile thing they called my mother, and that spoke words of sorrow, and uttered cries of grief, at a death too decent for such a being--no, let me speak, take your pure hands from me--I am not your husband! By a name that was never mine, I took your name--thank God you have it still! Your marriage is no marriage, your child is nameless as I am--do you know how the law would call me? One Greif, the bastard son of a certain Herr von Greifenstein and of a woman known as Clara Kurtz--that is the designation of all my honours, that is the description of your child's father, of the man you have called husband for twelve months and one day! The curse of God in Heaven on that wretch--she was not woman--may the furies of hell not tire of tormenting her accursed soul throughout all ages--yes--I mean my mo