constantly fighting duels about his uncle. For the present, he had
abandoned the idea of taking active service in the army.

Greifenstein was more silent, and stiff, and severely conscientious
than ever, and his daily habits grew if possible more unbendingly
regular, as though he were protesting already against any unpleasant
disturbance in his course of life which might be in store for him. When
he was alone with his cousin, he never recurred to the subject of
Rieseneck or his return, though the baroness constantly expected him to
do so, and watched his inscrutable face to detect some signs of a wish
to discuss the matter. For two reasons, she would not take the
initiative in bringing up the topic. In the first place, as he was the
person most nearly concerned, her tact told her that it was for him to
decide whether he would talk of his brother or not. Secondly she was
silent, because she had noticed something, and knew that he had noticed
it also. Frau von Greifenstein's behaviour was slowly changing, and the
change had begun from the hour in which her husband had read from the
paper the paragraph relating to the amnesty.

From the first moment, Frau von Sigmundskron had suspected that Clara
was affected by the news, and her first impression had very naturally
been that she knew the story and had learned it from her husband. There
was nothing improbable in the idea, and but for Greifenstein's words,
she would have taken it for granted that this was the true state of the
case. He, however, had emphatically denied that Clara was in the
secret, and had evidently looked forward with pain to the moment when
he should be obliged to communicate it to her. He was the most
scrupulously truthful of men, and could not have had any object in
concealing the point from his cousin. And yet there was no doubt that
his wife's manner had changed, and the baroness could see that