o me, embraced and
kissed me.

"You have conquered!--Now tell me what else you want with me?"

I was incapable of uttering a word, so oppressed was my heart in my
delight, my anguish. It was no child's play, this. Fate is not wont to
entrust such a struggle to a child's hands.

"Brother, dear!" more I could not say: I felt as he must have when he
brought me up from the bottom of the Danube.

"You will not allow anyone," he whispered, "to utter such a calumny
against me."

"You may be sure of that."

"You will not let them degrade me before mother?"

"I shall defend you. You see that after all I am capable of defending
you.--But time is precious:--they are prosecuting you for another crime
too, you know, from which to escape is a duty. There is not a moment to
lose. Fly!"

"Whither? I cannot take new misfortunes to mother's house."

"I have an idea. We have a relation of whom we have heard much, far off
in the interior of the country, where they will never look for you,
since we were never on good terms with him, Uncle Topandy."

"That infidel?" exclaimed Lorand; then he added bitterly, "It was a good
idea of yours, indeed: I shall have a very good place in the house of an
atheist, who lives at enmity with the whole earth, and with Heaven
besides."

"There you will be well hidden."

"Well and for ever."

"Don't say that. This danger will pass away."

"Listen to me, Desi," said Lorand severely. "I shall abide by what you
say: I shall go away, without once looking behind: I shall bury myself,
but on one condition, which you must accept, or I shall go to the
nearest police station and report myself."

"What do you wish?"

"That you shall never tell either mother or grandmother, where I have
gone to."

"Never?" I inquired, frightenedly.

"No, only after ten years, ten years from to-day."

"Why?"

"Don't ask me: only give me your word of honor to keep my secret. If you
do not do so, you will inflict a heavy sorrow on me, and on all our
family."

"But if circumstances change?"

"I said, not for ten years. And, if the whole world should dance with
delight, still keep peace and don't call for me, or put my mother on my
tracks. I have a special reason for my desire, and that reason I cannot
tell you."

"But if they ask me, if they weep before me?"

"Tell them nothing ails me, I am in a good place. I shall take another
name, [49]Balint Tatray. Topandy also shall know me under that name. I
shall f