Greif, could doubt the reality or the strength of her love. What had
now passed between them had left her with a new aspiration of which she
had not hitherto been conscious. She felt that hereafter she must find
some means of making Greif understand her. When he had said that he
understood her better, she had very nearly been offended again, for she
saw how very far he was from knowing what was in her heart. She longed,
as many have longed before, for some opportunity of sacrifice, of
heroic devotion, which might show him in one moment the whole depth and
breadth and loyalty of her love.




CHAPTER IV


While Hilda and Greif were talking together the three older members of
the family party had established themselves in a shady arbour of the
garden, close to the low parapet, whence one could look down the sheer
precipice to the leaping stream and watch the dark swallows shooting
through the shadow and the sunshine, or the yellow butterflies and
moths fluttering from one resting-place to another, drawn irresistibly
to the gleaming water, out of which their wet wings would never bear
them up again to the flower-garden of the castle above.

Frau von Greifenstein had seated herself in a straw chair with her
parasol, her fan and her lap-dog, a little toy terrier which was always
suffering from some new and unheard-of nervous complaint, and on which
the sensitive lady lavished all the care she could spare from herself.
The miserable little creature shivered all summer, and lay during most