face of nature had been distorted,
and it was freezing; in Lorand's fire-place a fire was blazing. The two
pieces of paper were at once burnt up.

Only they were not those on which the two young men had written their
names. Desiderius, without being noticed, had changed them for the dance
programme, which he had cast into the fire. He kept the two fatal
signatures to himself.

He had a very good reason for doing so, and a still better reason for
saying nothing about it.

Lorand said:

"Thank you, Desi."

He thanked him for drawing that lot.

Pepi Gyali took up his hat and said to Lorand in playful jesting:

"The white elephant is yours. Good night." And he went away unharmed.

"And now, my dear Desi, you must go home," said Lorand, gently grasping
his brother's hand.

"Why I have only just come."

"I have much to do, and it must be done to-day."

"Do it: I will sit down in a corner, and not say a word; I came to see
you. I will be silent and watch you."

Lorand took his brother in his arms and kissed him.

"I have to pay a visit somewhere where you could not come with me."

Desiderius listlessly felt for his cap.

"Yet I did so want to be with you this evening."

"To-morrow will do as well."

Lorand was afraid that the officers of justice might come any moment for
him. For his part he did not mind: but he did not wish his brother to be
present.

Desiderius sorrowfully returned home.

Lorand remained by himself.

By himself? Oh no. There around him were the others--seven in number:
those headless dead.

Well, fate is inevitable.

Family misfortune is inherited. One is destroyed by the family disease,
another by the hereditary curse.

And again the cause is the "sorrowful soil beneath them."

From that there is no escape.

A terrible inheritance is the self-shed blood, which besprinkles the
heads of sons and grandsons!

And his inheritance was--the pistol, with which his father had killed
himself.

It were vain for the whole Heaven to be here on earth. He must leave it,
must go, where the others had gone.

The eighth niche was still empty, but was already bespoken.

For later comers there was room only in the ditch of the graveyard.

And there were still ten years left to think thereon! But ten years is a
long time. Meanwhile that field might open where an honourable death,
grasping a scythe in its two hands, cuts a way through the ranks of
armed warriors:--where the children of we