Rudolf shrugged his shoulders. What did it matter to him what befell Abellino?

Look; now he is coming in! He had still that defiant, devil-may-care step, that haughty, insolent look, as if the whole world were full of his lackeys, that repellent beauty, for his features were as vacant as they were handsome.

"Ah, good evening, Bela; good evening, Bela!" screeched our friend Kecskerey, while Abellino was still some distance off; he did not move from his place, but sat there with his arms embracing his legs like the two of clubs as it is painted on old Hungarian cards.

Abellino went towards Kecskerey. He attributed the fact that he drew after him a whole group of gentlemen, who quitted the tea-tables and the whist-tables to crowd around him, to the particular respect of the present company to himself personally.

"I congratulate you," cried Kecskerey, in a shrill nasal voice, waving his hands towards Abellino.

"What for, you false club?"

Thus it was clear that Abellino also was struck by Kecskerey's great resemblance to the historical playing-card already mentioned, and this sally brought the laughter over to his side.

"Don't you know that I have just come from nunky, my dear?"

"Ah, that's another matter," said Abellino, in a somewhat softer voice. "And what, pray, is the dear old gentleman up to now?"

"That's just where my congratulations come in. All at home send you their best greetings, kisses, and embraces. The old gentleman is as sound as an acorn, or as a ripe apple freshly plucked from the tree. Don't be in the least concerned on his account; your uncle feels remarkably well. But your aunt is sick, very sick, and to all appearance she will be sicker still."

"Poor auntie!" said Abellino. "No doubt," thought he to himself, "that is why he congratulates me; and good news, too. No wonder he congratulates me. Perhaps she'll even die—who knows?—And what's the matter with her?" he asked aloud.

"Ah, she is in great danger. I assure you, my friend, that when last I saw her, the doctors had prohibited both riding and driving."

Even now the real state of things would not have occurred to Abellino's mind, had not a couple of quicker-witted gentlemen, who had come there for the express purpose of laughing, and were therefore on the alert for the point of the jest, suddenly laughed aloud. Then, all at once, light flashed into his brain.

"A thousand devils! You are speaking the truth now, I suppose?"

His face could not hide the fury which boiled up within him.

"Why, how else should I have cause to congratulate you?" said Kecskerey, laughing.

"Oh, it is infamous!" exclaimed Abellino, beside himself.

The bystanders began to pity him, and the softer-hearted among them quietly dispersed. It was a horrible thought that this man, who on entering the room had believed himself to be the master of millions, should have been plunged back into poverty by a few words.

Kecskerey alone had no pity for him. He never pitied any one who was unfortunate; he reserved all his sympathy for the prosperous.

"Then there's nothing more to be done," murmured Abellino, between his teeth, "unless it be to kill myself or that woman."

Kecskerey's strident rasping voice seemed to cut clean through that desperate murmur.

"If you want to kill or be killed, my friend, I should advise you to read Pitaval,[11] wherein you will find all sorts and kinds of tips for murderers, including lists of poisons both vegetable and mineral, a liberal choice of weapons of every description, and the best means of disposing of the corpus delecti afterwards, either by submersion, combustion, dissection, or inhumation. The whole twelve volumes is a little library of itself, and a man who reads it patiently through to the end will easily persuade himself that he is a born murderer. I recommend the matter to your attention. Ho, ho, ho!"

[Footnote 11: The allusion, no doubt, is to F. G. de Pitaval's "Causes celebres et interessantes."—TR.]

To all this Abellino paid no attention. "Who can be this woman's lover?" said he.

"Look around you, my friend, and choose for yourself."

"At least I should like to recognize and kill him."

"I am absolutely sure I know who her lover is," remarked Kecskerey.

"Who?" asked Abellino, with sparkling eyes. "Oh, that man I should like to know!"

Kecskerey, who was having rare sport with him, drew his neck down between his shoulders, and continued—"How many times have I not seen you fall upon his neck, and kiss and embrace him!"

"Who is it, who is it?" cried Abellino, catching hold of Kecskerey's arm.

"Would you like to know?"

"I should."

"Then it is—her husband."

"This is a stupid jest," cried Abellino, quite forgetting himself; "and nobody will believe it. That woman loves somebody, loves some one with shameful self-abandonment. And that old scoundrel, her husband, knows and suffers it in order to gratify his vengeance on me. But I will find out who he is, I will find out who it is if it be the devil himself, and I will bring a scandalous action against this woman, the like of which the world has never yet seen."

At that moment a loud manly voice rang out amidst the group of listeners who were beginning to rally Abellino, and ironically beg him not to suspect them as they were quite innocent, and could not lay claim to the honour of making Madame Karpathy happy.

"Gentlemen," it said, "you forget that it is not becoming in men of breeding to make ribald jests about the name of a lady whom nobody in the world has any cause or any right to traduce."

"What, Rudolf! Why, what interest have you in the matter?" inquired the astonished Kecskerey.

"This much—I am a man and will not allow a woman whom I respect to be vilified in my presence."

That was saying a great deal, and there was no blinking it, not only because Rudolf was right and enjoyed the best of reputations, but also because he was known to be the best shot and swordsman in the place, and cool-headed and lucky to boot.

So from henceforth Madame Karpathy's name ceased to be alluded to in the club.



CHAPTER XIX.

ZOLTAN KARPATHY.

What Abellino had cause to tremble at had really happened. Madame John Karpathy had become a mother. A son was born to her.

Early one morning the family doctor invaded the sanctum of the Nabob with the joyful intelligence—"Your wife has borne you a son!"

Who can describe the joy of Squire John thereat? What he had hitherto only ventured to hope, to imagine, his hardiest, most ardent desire was gratified: his wife had a son! A son who would be his heir and perpetuate his name! who was born in happier times, who would make good the faults of his father, and by means of his youthful virtues fulfil the obligations which the Karpathy family owed to its country and to humanity.

If only he might live long enough to hear the child speak, to read a meaning in his sweet babblings, to speak words to him that he might understand and never forget, so that in the days to come, when he was the feted hero of all great and noble ideas, he might say, "I first heard of these things from that good old fellow, John Karpathy."

What should be the child's name? It should be the name of one of those princes who drank out of the same wine-cup with the primal ancestor of the House of Karpathy on the fair plains of Hunnia. It should be Zoltan—Zoltan Karpathy—how beautifully that would sound!

Presently they brought to him this new citizen of the world, and he held him in his arms and kissed and embraced him. He could scarce see him for the tears of joy that streamed from his eyes, and yet how greatly he longed to see him! With twinkling eyes he regarded the child, and a fine, vigorous little lad it was, like a little rosy-cheeked angel; his little hands and neck were regularly wrinkled everywhere from very plumpness, his mouth was hardly larger than a strawberry, but his sparkling eyes, than which no precious stone was ever of a purer azure, were all the larger by contrast, and whenever he drooped them the long lashes lay conspicuous on his chubby cheeks. He did not cry, he was quite serious, just as if he knew that it would be a great shame to be weak now, and when Squire John, in his rapture, raised him to a level with his lips and kissed his little red face again and again with his stiff, bristly moustache, he began to smile and utter a merry little gurgle, which those who were standing round Squire John were quite positive was an attempt to speak.

"Talk away, my darling little soul," stammered Squire John, perceiving that the child was screwing up his little round lips all sorts of ways, as if he knew very well what he wanted to say but could not find the right words, "talk away, talk away! Don't be afraid, we understand you. Say it again."

But the doctor and the nurses thought well to interpret the little suckling's discourse as a desire to go back to his mother. Enough of caresses then, for the present, they said, and, taking him out of Squire John's arms, they brought him back to his mother, whereupon the good gentleman could not but steal softly into the adjoining room and listen whether the child was crying, and every time anybody came out he would ask what was going on or what had happened since, and every time anybody went in he sent a message along with him.

Towards the afternoon the doctor emerged again, and asked him to retire with him to another room.

"Why? I prefer being here; at least I can hear what they are talking about."

"Yes; but I don't want you to hear what they are talking about in there."

John stared at him. He began to feel bad as he met the doctor's cold look; and he followed him mechanically into the adjoining room.

"Well, sir, what is it you wish to say to me that others may not hear?"

"Your worship, a great joy has this day befallen your house."

"I know it. I understand it. God be praised!"

"God has indeed blessed your worship with a great joy, but it has also seemed good to Him to prove you with affliction."

"What do you mean by that?" thundered the terrified Karpathy, and his face turned blue.

"Look now, your worship, this is just what I feared, and that is why I called you aside into an adjoining room; show yourself a Christian, and learn to bear the hand of God."

"Don't torture me; say exactly what has happened."

"Your honour's wife will die."

After hearing this Karpathy stood there without uttering a word.

"If there was any help for her in this world," continued the doctor, "I would say there is hope, but it is my duty to tell you that her hours, her moments, are numbered, therefore your honour must play the man, and go to her and bid her good-bye, for ere long she will be unable to speak."

Karpathy allowed himself to be led into the dying woman's chamber. The whole world was blurred before him, he saw nobody, he heard nothing; he saw her only lying there pale, faded, with the sweat of death upon her glorious face, with the pallor of death around her dear lips, with the refracted gleam of death in her beautiful inspired eyes.

There he stood, beside the bed, unable to speak a word. His eyes were tearless. The room was full of serving-maids and nurses. Here and there a stifled sob was to be heard. He neither saw nor heard anything. He only gazed dumbly, stonily, at the dying woman. On each side of the bed a familiar form was kneeling—Flora and Teresa.

The good old aunt, with clasped hands, was praying, her face concealed among the pillows. Flora held the little boy in her arms; he was sleeping with his head upon her bosom.

The sick woman raised her breaking eyes towards her husband, stretched out her trembling, fevered hand, and, grasping the hand of her husband, drew it towards her panting lips, and gasped, in a scarcely audible voice, "Remember me!"

Squire John did not hear, he did not understand what she said to him, he only held his wife's hand in both his own as if he believed that he could thereby draw her away from Death.

After an hour's heavy struggle, the feverish delirium of the sick woman began to subside, her blood circulated less fiercely, her hands were no longer so burning hot, her breathing grew easier.

She began to look about her calmly and recognize every one. She spoke to those about her in a quiet, gentle voice; the tormenting sweat had vanished from her face.

"My husband, my dear husband!" she said, casting a look full of feeling upon Squire John.

Her husband rejoiced within himself, thinking it a sign of amendment; but the doctor shook his head, he knew it was a sign of death.

Next, the sick woman turned towards Flora. Her friend guessed the meaning of her inquiring look, and held the little child nestling on her bosom to the sick woman's lips. Fanny tenderly strained it to her heaving breast, and kissed the face of the sleeping child, who at every kiss opened its dark-blue eyes, and then drooped them and went on sleeping again.

The mother put it back on Flora's breast, and, pressing the lady's hand, whispered to her—

"Be a mother to my child."

Flora could not reply, but she nodded her head. Not a sound would come to her lips, and she turned her head aside, lest the dying woman should see the tears in her eyes.

Then Fanny folded her hands together on her breast, and murmured the single prayer which she had been taught to say in her childhood—

"O God, my God, be merciful to me, poor sinful girl, now and for evermore. Amen."

Then she cast down her eyes gently, and fell asleep.

"She has gone to sleep," murmured the husband, softly.

"She is dead," faltered the doctor, with a look of pity.

And the good old Nabob fell down on his knees beside the bed, and, burying his head in the dead woman's pillows, sobbed bitterly, oh, so bitterly!



CHAPTER XX.

SECRET VISITORS.

Soon came winter. The cold, frosty, snow-laden season began; nothing but white forests, white fields, are to be seen in every quarter of the level Alfoeld, and as early as four o'clock in the afternoon the dark-grey, lilac-coloured atmosphere begins to envelope the horizon all round about, rising higher and higher every moment, till at last the very vault of heaven is reached, and it is night. Only the snowy whiteness of the plain preserves some gleam of light to the landscape.

Pale fallow stripes appear to have been drawn across the snowy expanse; they are the tracks of the sledges, stretching from one village to another.

Karpathy Castle seemed to make the uniform monotonous landscape still more melancholy. At other times the windows, of an evening, shed their light far and wide, and merry groups of sportsmen bustled about the well-filled courtyard; but now, scarcely more than a gleam of light was to be seen in two or three of the windows, and only the blue smoke of the chimneys showed that it was still inhabited.

Alone on these dun-coloured roads, in the fall of the long winter evening, a peasant's sledge, without bells, might have been seen gliding along through that featureless, semi-obscure wilderness towards Karpathy Castle.

In the rear of the sledge sat a man wrapped in a simple mantle; in front, a peasant, in a sheepskin bunda, was driving the two lean horses.

The sitter behind frequently stood up in the sledge, and swept the plain on every side, as if he were in search of something. The preserves of the Karpathy estate loomed darkly before him, and by the time they reached a ramshackle old wooden bridge, the visitor perceived what he sought.

"Those are pine-trees, are they not?" he inquired of the coachman.

"Yes, young sir; one can recognize them from a distance, for they are still green when the others have shed their leaves."

They were the only trees of the sort in the whole region. They had all been planted in Squire John's time.

"Here we will stop, old comrade. You return to the wayside csarda; I will take a turn about here alone. I shall not be longer than an hour away."

"It would be as well were I to accompany you, young sir, if you mean to take a stroll, for wolves are wont to wander hither."

"It is not necessary, my good friend, I am not afraid."

And with that the stranger dismounted from the sledge, and, taking his axe in his hand, directed his way through the snowy field to the spot where the pines stood out darkly against the snow-white plain.

What was beneath those pines?

The family vault of the Karpathys, and he who came to visit it at that hour was Alexander Boltay.

The young artisan had heard from Teresa on her return home that Fanny was dead. The great lady had been lowered into her tomb for the worms just as the wife of the poorest artisan might have been, and her tomb was perhaps still more neglected than the tomb of the artisan's wife would have been.

Then Alexander opened his heart to the old people. He meant, he said, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the dead dear one whom he worshipped both in life and in death, and to whom, now that she was under the ground, he might confess his love, he had as much right now to her death-cold heart as anybody else in the world. The two old people did not attempt to dissuade him; let him go, they thought; let him take his sorrow there and bury it; perchance he will be lighter of heart when he has wept himself out there.

In the ice-bound season the young man set out, and from the description which Teresa gave him, he recognized the funereal pine-grove which John Karpathy had had planted round the family vault, in order that there it might be green when everything else was white and dead.

He quitted the sledge, and cut across the plain, while the driver returned to the wayside csarda.

Meanwhile a pair of horsemen might have been seen slowly approaching from the opposite direction. One of them was a little in the rear of the other, and led four hardy hounds in a long leash.

"I see the trail of a fox, Martin," said the foremost horseman, calling the attention of the one behind to the trail. "We can easily track him through the fresh snow if we look sharp, and can catch him up before we reach Karpatfalva."

The groom appeared to confirm his master's assertion.

"Follow the trail as straight as you can, and hand over two of the hounds to me while I make a circuit of the wood yonder."

With that he took over two of the dogs, and sending his escort on in front, turned aside, slowly wading through the snow. But the moment his man was out of sight, he suddenly changed his direction, and strode rapidly towards the pine grove.

On reaching the trench which surrounded it, he dismounted, tied his horse to a bush and the dogs to his saddle bow and waded across the narrow ditch. By the light of the snow it was easy to find his goal.

A large white marble monument arose by the side of a green tree, on the top of it was the sad emblem of death, an angel with an inverted torch.

The horseman stood alone before the monument—this visitor was Rudolf.

Thus both of them had come at the same time, and it was the will of Fate that they should meet there before the tomb.

Rudolf hastened confidently towards the white colonnaded monument and stood rooted to the ground with amazement on perceiving the figure of a man, apparently in a state of collapse, half sitting, half kneeling on the pedestal. But the man was equally amazed to see him there.

Neither recognized the other.

"What are you doing here, sir?" asked Rudolf, who was the first to recover his composure, drawing nearer to the pedestal.

Alexander recognized the voice, he knew that it was Rudolf, and could not understand why he should have come to that place at that hour.

"Count Szentirmay," he said gently, "I am that artisan to whom you showed a kindness once upon a time; be so good as to show yet another kindness to me by leaving me here alone and asking no questions."

Then Rudolf recognized the young man, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that the dead woman before she became Dame Karpathy had been engaged to a poor young artisan who had so bravely, so chivalrously, exposed himself to death for her sake.

Now he understood everything.

He took the young man's hand and pressed it.

"You loved this lady? You have come hither to mourn over her?"

"Yes, sir. There's nothing to be ashamed of in that. One may love the dead. I loved that woman, I love her now, and I shall never love another."

Rudolf's heart went out to the young man.

"You remain here," he said, "I will leave you to yourself. I will wait in the cemetery outside, and if I can be of any service to you command me."

"Thank you, sir, I will go too; I have done what I came here to do."

The name of the dear departed was inscribed on the tomb in golden letters, and these letters gleamed forth in the light of the snow: "Madame Karpathy, nee Fanny Meyer."

The young artisan removed his cap, and with the same respect, the same reverence with which one touches the lips of the dead, he kissed every letter of the word "Fanny."

"I am not ashamed of this weakness before you," said Alexander, standing up again, "for you have a noble heart, and will not laugh at me."

Rudolf answered nothing, but he turned his head aside. God knows why, but he could not have met the young man's eyes at that moment.

"And now, sir, we can go."

"Where will you spend the night? Come with me to Szentirma!"

"Thank you; you are very good to me, but I must return this very hour. The moon will soon be up, and there will be light enough to see my way by. I must make haste, for there's lots for me to do at home."

He could not prevail upon him; a man's sorrow has no desire to be comforted.

Rudolf accompanied him to the wayside csarda, where the sledge was awaiting him. He could not restrain himself from warmly pressing the artisan's hand and even embracing him.

And Alexander did not guess the meaning of that warm grasp, or why this great nobleman was so good to him.

Shortly afterwards the sledge disappeared in the darkness of the night by the same road by which it had come. Rudolf returned to the pine-trees, and paid another visit to the white monument. There he stood and thought of the woman who had suffered so much, and who, perhaps, was thinking of him there below. Her face stood before him now as it had looked when she had followed with her eyes the rejected amaranth; as it had looked when she galloped past him on her wild charger; as it had looked when she had hidden it on his bosom in an agony of despairing love, in order that there she might weep out her woe, amidst sweet torture and painful joy, that secret woe which she had carried about with her for years. And when he thought on these things, his fine eyes filled with tears.

He noticed the imprints of the knees of the departed youth, where he had knelt on the pedestal of the monument in the snow, and he fell a-thinking.

Did not this woman, who had so suffered, lived and died, deserve as much? And he himself bent his knee before the monument.

And he read the name. Like a spectral invitation, those five letters, F-a-n-n-y, gleamed before him so seductively.

For a long time he remained immersed in his own reflections, and thought—and thought—

At last he bent down and kissed the five letters one after another, just as the other young fellow had done.

Then he flung himself on his horse. His errant groom, not finding his master, was impatiently blowing his horn in every direction. Rudolf soon came up with him, and half an hour later they were in the courtyard of John Karpathy's castle. Karpathy had invited Rudolf to hasten to him that very night.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

They already expected Rudolf at the Castle. The moment he dismounted, Paul, who was awaiting him in the hall, led him straight to Karpathy.

The servants all wore black since their mistress had been buried, and all the mirrors and escutcheons in the rooms were still covered with the black crape with which they had been enveloped on the day of the funeral.

Squire John was waiting for Rudolf in his private room, and as soon as he saw him enter, he rose from his seat, hastened to meet him, and warmly pressed his hand.

"Many thanks, Rudolf, many thanks for coming. Pardon me for sending for you at such an hour and in such hot haste. God has brought you. Thank you very much for coming. Rudolf, a peculiar feeling has come over me. Three days ago, a strange sort of sensation, not unpleasant, took possession of my limbs, and when I awoke from my sleep in the night it was with a odd sort of joy, I know not how to express it, as if my soul had quitted me. I take it as an omen of my death. Do not gainsay me, I beg. I am not afraid of death; I long for it. At such times a quick current of air brushes past my ear, as if some one were about to fly away from close beside me. I know what that means. Twice I have had a similar sensation, and on each occasion a current of air has struck me. I fancy this will be the last of them. I think of it with joy, and have not the slightest fear of it. I have sent for you in order that I may make my last will, while I still have the possession of all my faculties, and I wish you to be my executor. Will you accept the trust?"

Rudolf indicated his willingness in silence.

"Then come with me to my library. The other witnesses are waiting there now. I have got them together as rapidly as I could, and they are all honest fellows."

As they were passing through the suite of rooms, Squire John suddenly stopped Rudolf, and said—

"Look! in this room I heard her laugh for the last time. On that chair yonder she lost her shawl—it is there still. On that table is a pair of gloves, the last she ever wore. Here she used to sit when she sketched. There's the piano, still open—a fantasia lies, you see, on the music-stand. If she should come back again, eh?"

And now he opened the door of a room illuminated by candles—Rudolf shrunk back.

"Old friend, that's not a fit place to enter. Surely you have lost yourself in your own house! That is your wife's bedroom."

"I know, but I can never pass it without going in. And now I mean to have a last look at it, for to-morrow I shall have it walled up. Look, everything remains just as she left it. She did not die in this room—don't be alarmed! That door yonder leads to the garden. Look, everything is in its old place—there the lamp by which she used to read, on the table a half-written letter, which nobody has read. A hundred times have I entered the room, and not a word of that letter have I read. To me it is holy. In front of the bed are her two little embroidered slippers, so tiny that they look as if they had been made for a child. On the table is an open prayer-book, between the open leaves of which are an iris and an amaranth and a maple leaf. She greatly loved those flowers."

"Let us go away from hence, let us go away," urged Rudolf. "It pains me to hear you talk so."

"It pains you, eh?—it does me good. I have sat here for days together, and have called to mind every word she said. I see her before me everywhere, asleep, awake, smiling, sorrowful—I see her resting her pretty head on the pillows, I see her sleeping, I see her dying——"

"Oh! come, come away!"

"We will go, Rudolf. And I shall never come back again. To-morrow a smooth wall will be here in the place of the door, and iron shutters will cover all the windows. I feel that I ought not to seek her here any more. Elsewhere, elsewhere I will seek her: we will dwell together in another room. Let us go, let us go!"

And smilingly, without a tear, like one who is preparing for his bridal day, he quitted the room, casting one more look around upon it from the threshold, and a dumb kiss into the darkness, as if he were taking leave for a last time of a beloved object visible only to himself.

"Let us come, let us come!"

In the large library the witnesses were awaiting them.

They were four—the local notary, a stoutish young man, with his back planted against the warm stove; the estate agent, benevolent Peter Varga, who had asked, as a favour, that he might wear black like the other family servants; the parish priest, and Mike Kis. That worthy youth had quitted the brilliant saloons whose hero he was, to comfort his old friend in the days of his tribulation. The fiscal was there also, cutting quills for every one present, and sticking them into the inkstands, which were placed all round the round table in front of the witnesses.

When Squire John and Rudolf entered the room, every one present saluted them with the grave solemnity befitting the occasion.

The Squire beckoned to everybody to be seated—Rudolf on his right, Mike Kis on his left, the fiscal opposite to him, that they might the better hear what he was going to say.

At the furthest end of the table sat Mr. Varga, with all the candles piled in front of him. He knew why.

"My dear friends and good neighbours," began the Nabob, while every one listened with the deepest attention, "God has numbered my days, and is about to call me from this transitory life to His glory, and therefore I call you all to witness that what I am going to say now is said clearly, deliberately, and while I am in the full possession of all my faculties. I find that the estates which God, of His goodness, has entrusted to my hands, now yield over a million of florins more of clear income than when I came into possession of them. God grant that they may be more productive of blessings in the hands of others than they have been in mine! I begin my last will and testament with a reference to her who was dearest to me in the world and now slumbers in her tomb. This tomb is the beginning and the end of my arrangements in this life; it has been my first thought when I rose up, and my last thought when I lay down, and will last on when I rise up no more. My first bequest, then, is 50,000 florins, the interest on which is to go to that gardener on my domains whose duty it shall be, in return therefor, to cultivate from early spring to late autumn, irises and amaranths,—flowers which 'she' loved so much,—and have them planted regularly round the grave of my unforgettable wife. Furthermore I bequeath the interest of 10,000 florins to the gardeners of the Castle of Madaras, from father to son, whose corresponding obligation it shall be to maintain a conservatory near to the maple tree, beneath which is a white bench." Here the Squire sighed, half to himself, "That was her favourite seat; there she used to sit all through the afternoons. And the gardener is to plant another maple tree beside it, that it may not stand so solitarily there. If at any time the tree should wither, or if any careless descendant of mine should ever cut it down, the whole amount reserved for this purpose shall go to the poor."

Rudolf sat there with a cold, immovable face while all this was being said; nobody guessed what he felt while these words were being spoken.

"'How foolish the old man must have grown in his latter years,' his descendants will one day say, when they read these dispositions, 'leaving legacies to trees and shrubs!'"

"Furthermore," pursued Squire John, "I bequeath 50,000 florins to form a fund for dowering girls of good behaviour on their marriage. On every anniversary of the day on which my unforgettable wife fell asleep, all the young maids on my estate shall meet together in the church to pray to God for the souls of those that have died; then the three among these virgins whom the priest shall judge to be the most meritorious shall be presented with bridal wreaths in the presence of the congregation, and the sum of money set apart for them; and then they shall proceed to the tomb and deck it with flowers, and pray that God may make her who lies there happier in the other world than she was in this. And that is my desire."

Here he stopped, waiting till the lawyer had written down all his words, during which time a mournful silence prevailed in the room, interrupted only by the scratching and spluttering of the pen on the paper.

When the lawyer looked up from his parchment by way of signifying that he had written everything down, the Squire sighed, and hung his head.

"When it pleases God to bring upon me the hour in which I shall quit this transitory life, when I am dead, I desire to be buried in the dress in which I was married to her; my faithful servant, old Paul, will know which it is. The coffin, in which I am to be put, stands all ready in my bedroom; every day I look at it, and accustom myself to the thought of it; often I lay me down in it, and bethink me how good it would be were I never to rise from it again. It is quite ready. I took some trouble about it; it is just like hers. My name has already been driven into it with nice silver nails, only the date of my death has to be added. That priest is to pray over me who prayed over her, and how beautiful that will be!"

"Sir, sir!" interrupted the priest, "who can read in the book of life and death, or tell which of us twain will live longest, or die first?"

The Squire beckoned to the priest to bear with him—he himself knew best.

"Further, remove none of the mourning draperies from the rooms, let everything remain as it was at the time of her burial. Let the selfsame cantors come from Debreczen and sing over me the same chants, and no other. Just what they sang over her, and the selfsame youths must do it. All those chants were so dear to me."

"Oh, sir," said the priest, "perchance every one of these students may be grown-up men by then."

The Squire only shook his head, and thus proceeded—

"And when they have opened the vault, they are to break down the partition wall between the two niches, so that there may be nothing between her coffin and mine, and I may descend into the grave with the comfortable thought that I shall sleep beside her till the day of that joyful resurrection which God grants to every true believer. Amen!"

And all those big grave men sitting round the table there fell a-weeping, and not one of them felt ashamed of himself before the others. Even the matter-of-fact lawyer spoilt his nib, and could not see the letters he was writing. Only on the Squire's face was there no sign of sadness. He spoke like one bent on preparing his bridal chamber.

"When I am buried, my funeral monument—it is standing all ready in my museum—must be placed beside hers. The date of death is alone wanting, and I want nothing added to the inscription: it must remain just as it is—my name and nothing more. Beneath it are inscribed these lines: 'He lived but one year, the rest he slept away.' One of my treasures is beneath the ground, and in no long time I shall be alone with it. My second treasure, my joy, the hope of my soul, remains here. I mean my son."

At these words the first tear he had shed appeared in Karpathy's eyes. He dried it hastily, but it was a tear of joy.

"May he never resemble me in anything! may he be better, wiser than his father was! Mr. Lawyer, write down what I say in as many words. Why should I make any mystery of it? I am standing before the presence of God. I want my son to be better than I was. Perchance God will forgive me for the sake of his virtues. May my country, too, forgive me, and my ancestors who have led lives like mine, for our sins against her! May his life make manifest what ours ought to have been! May his wealth never spoil his heart, so that in his old age he may not repent him of his youth. I would have my son a happy man. But what is happiness? Money? possessions? power? No, none of these. I possessed them all, and yet I was not happy. Let his soul be rich, and then he will be happy. Let him be an honourable, wise, courageous citizen, a good patriot, a nobleman not merely by name, but in heart and soul, and then he will be happy.

"I am well aware," pursued Karpathy, "that if I left my son in the guardianship of his nearest relative—I allude to my nephew Bela—it would mean his utter ruin. I charge that kinsman of mine before God's judgment-seat with being a bad man, a bad relative, a bad patriot, who would be even worse than he is if he were not as mad as he is bad. No! I will not have the heart of my boy ruined by such a man as that. I would place him in the hands of those who would inspire him with all noble ideas; who would guide him along the paths of honour and virtue; who would cherish and defend him better than I could do were I able to stretch forth my hand from the tomb in his defence. I would place him in the hands of a man who will be a better father to him than I could ever be, and who, if he cannot love him better than I love him, will, at least, love him more wisely. The man whom I appoint the legal guardian of my son is Count Rudolf Szentirmay."

The good old man warmly pressed the hands of the youth sitting on his right, who thereupon arose from his chair and embraced the Nabob with tears of emotion. On resuming his seat, he whispered, in a husky voice, of which he was scarce the master, that he accepted the trust.

"'She' also wished it," said the Nabob. "In her last hour, as she placed my child in the arms of your wife, she said these words: 'Be a mother to my child!' I have not forgotten it; and now I say to you, 'Be a father to my child!' Happy child! What a good father, what a good mother, you will inherit!

"And now," continued the Nabob, "a word or two concerning him who was the cause of the bitterest moments of my life. I mean my nephew, who was christened Bela, but who calls himself Abellino. I will not reckon up the sins he has committed against God, his country, and myself. God and his country forgive him, as I have forgiven him; but I should be a liar and a hypocrite before God if I said, at this hour, that I loved him. I feel as cold towards him as towards one whom I have never seen. And now he is reduced to the beggar's staff; now he has more debts than the hairs of his head. What will become of him? He cannot work—he has never earned a penny; he has never learnt anything: he is bankrupt both in body and mind. He is not likely to take his own life, for libertines do not readily become suicides. And far be the thought of such a thing from him. I desire it not. Let him live. Let him have time to turn to God! Nor do I wish him to be a beggar, to feel want, to beg his bread at other men's doors. I order, therefore, that my agent at Pest shall pay him a gold ducat down every day. I fancy that will be quite enough to keep anybody from suffering want. But this ducat he himself must come and fetch day by day, and it must be paid to nobody but himself personally. But every time he fails to come for such ducat it shall be forfeited to the lawyer, and it must in no case be attached for debt, or paid to him in advance. But every time my birthday, John Baptist's Day, comes round, he shall receive a lump sum of one hundred ducats down extra. It is my wish that he should rejoice beforehand at the coming of that day every year, and that he should thus remember me from year to year.

"And now my business with the world is over. I have no other kinsmen to remember. My friends I can easily count up. I only know of three to whom I can really give that name. The first is Rudolf, to him I have left my child. The second is Mike Kis. He, also, was always a good fellow, who loved me right well. Whenever misfortune came, he was always to be found by my side. To him I leave my favourite horse and my favourite dog. I could not leave them a better master, or him a more pleasant keepsake. My third good friend is my steward, Peter Varga."

"Oh, sir!" the other old man would have murmured; but his tongue refused to move.

"To him I leave my old servant Paul, and old Vidra the jester, and the Lapayi property. May he live there happily with my two faithful servants.

"All my agents now employed upon the estate are to go on receiving their usual salaries, and they are not to lose their pay if they have to be discharged from old age or infirmity. The general management of my estate I leave to the wise discretion of Count Rudolf Szentirmay.

"And now, committing my soul to God and my body to the earth, I await with resignation my dissolution, and, putting my whole trust in God, I look forward to the hour when I shall turn to dust."

These last words were also written down. The lawyer then read the will; and then, first Karpathy and then all the witnesses present subscribed and sealed it. And the same night a fair copy of it was made and sent to Rudolf, as the chief magistrate of the county.

Then Karpathy bade the priest send in the sexton.

He entered accordingly, and a golden goblet with wine in it and a golden patten with a thin slice of bread on it were placed on a little round ebony table. It was the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the last supper such as the sick unto death partake of.

The priest stood in front of the table on which the wine and the bread were. Karpathy, with Christian humility, approached the sacred elements, the others stood around in silence. Then the priest communicated him in their presence, and, after the simple ceremony was over, the old man said to the priest—

"In no very long time, I shall see the happier country face to face. If you hear that I am sick, say no prayers in church for my recovery,—it would be useless; pray rather for my new life. And now let us go to my son."

"To my son!" What feeling, what pathos was in that one phrase: "To my son!"

All who were present followed him, and surrounded the child's cradle. The little thing looked gravely at all those serious manly faces, as if it also would have made one of them. The squire lifted him in his arms. The child looked at him with such big wise eyes, as if he were taking it all in; and the old man kissed his little lips again and again.

Then he was passed round among all the other old fellows, and he looked at them all so gravely, as if he knew very well that they were all of them honourable men; but when Rudolf took him in his arms the child began to kick and crow, and fight with his little hands, and make a great fuss, as children are wont to do when they are in a good humour—who knows why?—and Rudolf kissed the child's forehead.

"How glad he is," said the Nabob, "just as if he knew that from henceforth you will be his father."

A few hours later the whole company sat down to supper.

They noticed that the Squire ate and drank nothing, but he explained that, after taking the holy bread and wine, he would not sit down to ordinary food, and meant to eat nothing till the morrow.

And the old servant waiting upon them whispered to Rudolf that his master had not touched a thing since yesterday evening.



CHAPTER XXII.

LEAVE-TAKING.

Every one in the castle retired to rest early except Rudolf, who remained up for a long time. The fire burnt cosily on the hearth, and there he sat before the fire till past midnight, reflecting on the past and on the future. To speak of his thoughts would be treachery. There are secrets which are better left at the bottom of men's hearts.

Towards midnight a great hubbub arose in the castle, and servants began rushing up and down stairs. Rudolf, who was still half dressed, went out into the corridor, and came face to face with old Paul.

"What is the matter?" said he.

The old servant would have spoken, but his lips were sealed; he shivered convulsively, like one who would fain cry and cannot. At last he came out with it, and there were tears on his cheek and in his eyes—

"He is dead!"

"Impossible!" cried Rudolf; and he hastened to the Squire's bedroom.

There lay the Nabob with closed eyes, his hands folded across his breast, in front of him his wife's portrait that he might gaze upon it to the last. That countenance looked so venerable after death, it seemed to have been purified from all disturbing passions, only the old ancestral dignity was visible in every feature.

He had died so quietly that even the faithful old servant, who slept in the same room with him, had not been aware of it: only when, struck by the extraordinary stillness, he had gone to see if his master wanted anything, did he perceive that he was dead.

Rudolf at once sent for the doctor, although one glance at the quiet face assured him that there was no need of doctors here.

By the time everything was ready for the funeral—for indeed everything necessary therefor was already at hand in the bedroom, the coffin, the pall, the escutcheons, the torches—he had no longer had that fear of a coffin which he had felt on his birthday. Everything was done as he had planned it.

They attired him in his wedding garments, and so placed him in the coffin. They sent for the very same youths who had sung the dirges over his wife so sweetly, and they sang the selfsame hymns for the dead over his coffin likewise.

The news of his death had spread all over the county, and the courtyard of Karpatfalva was thronged once more with the bizarre mob which had filled it before on that day of rejoicing, except that sad faces came now instead of merry ones. Not one of his old acquaintances remained away; every one hastened to see him once more, and every one said that they could not recognize him, so greatly had death changed him.

A tremendous crowd followed the coffin to the grave. The most eminent men in the kingdom carried torches before it, the most distinguished ladies in the land were among the mourners that followed after it. Custom demanded that the heir, the eldest son, should accompany his father's coffin. But as the heir was only six months old, he had to be carried, and it was Lady Szentirmay who carried him in her bosom. And every one who saw it maintained that she embraced and protected the child as tenderly as if she were really its mother.

Happy child!

The good old Nabob was committed to his last resting-place by the selfsame priest who had spoken such consolatory words over the body of his wife. There was much weeping, but the one who wept the most was the priest himself, who ought to have comforted the others.

Then they lowered him down into those silent mansions where the dead have their habitation, and they laid him by the side of his departed wife as he had desired. The last hymns sounded so ghostly down in the vault there as the wailing chant ascended up through the earth, even those who wept made haste to depart from thence and get into the light of day once more. And the heavy iron door clanged thunderously on its hinges behind them.

And the Nabob? Ah, now he is happy indeed, happy for evermore!

THE END.



LIST OF THE HUNGARIAN WORDS USED IN THIS VERSION.

ALFOeLD, the great Hungarian plain.

ATTILA, the short, fringed pelisse of the Hungarian national costume.

BACSI, uncle, a term of familiarity between a young and an old man.

BETYAR, a vagabond, a loafer.

BUNDA, a mantle.

CSARDA, a country inn.

CSIKOS, a guard or keeper of horses in the steppe.

CSIZMA, a boot

EGRI, a red wine of the claret kind produced near Eger.

ELJEN, vivat! hurrah!

FOISPAN, a lord-lieutenant.

FOKOS, a hand-axe.

FRISS-MAGYAR, an Hungarian country-dance.

GUBA, a shaggy mantle of coarse wool.

GULYAS, a herdsman.

GUNYA, a peasant's jacket.

HEGYALJA, the Tokay district.

KACZAGANY, a fur over-mantle.

KALPAG, the Hungarian tall fur cap, mostly plumed, part of the national costume.

KANTUS, a short under-garment.

KOeNTOeS, a gown, or robe.

MENES, a stud of horses.

MENTE, a short fur pelisse.

MESZELY, a white Hungarian wine.

PALINKA, Hungarian brandy.

PRIMAS, the conductor of a gipsy band.

PUSZTA, the wilderness, a wide-spreading heath.

SZILVORIUM, a spirit made from plums.

[Transcriber's Note: Several typographical errors in the original edition have been corrected. The following sentences are as they originally appeared, with corrections noted in brackets.]

Chapter III

There was a pipe in Master Jack's [Jock's] mouth, and he was engaged at that moment in filling it with tobacco.

Chapter VIII

Where is he now—the unknown, the unnameable, the unforgetable [unforgettable] ideal?

Chapter IX

Abellino was constantly attended by a spy in the service of the genial banker, who had immediately hastened to acquaint his principals in Paris with the latest tidings from Karpathfalva [Karpatfalva], notably of what had happened on the night of Squire John's birthday.

Chapter X

Karpathy inquired after his friend Rudolf, Lady Flora's husband, expressing the hope that he would not forget his promise to honour Karpathfalva [Karpatfalva] with his presence on the occasion of the entertainment that was coming off there in honour of the young bride.

Chapter XI

I have tried it, and never known it to fail.["]

"And now comes Count Sarosdy [Sarosdy], the foispan.

Chapter XII

Mr. Malnay [Malnay] dreamt of parties

Chapter XXI

I have got them together as rapidly as I could, and they are all honest fellows.["]

Chapter XXII

Ah, now he is happy indeed[,] happy for evermore!

Glossary

FOeISPAN [FOISPAN], a lord-lieutenant.

THE END