ughing came
where we were beside the hedge.

In him we recognized old Marton.

"I have found you after all," said the old fellow, smiling. "What a fine
time I have had. They really thought I was drunk. I quarrelled with
them. That was the 'gaude!' They tugged and pulled, and beat my back
with the flat of their sabres: it was something glorious!"

"Well, how did you escape?" I asked, not finding that entertainment to
the accompaniment of sabre-blows so glorious.

"When I saw a carriage approaching, I leaped out from their midst and
climbed up behind:--nor did they give me a long chase. I soon got away
from them."

The good old man was quite content with the fine amusement which he had
procured for himself.

"But now we must really say adieu, Master Lorand. Don't go the same way
as the carriage went: cut across the road here in the hills to the lower
road; you can breakfast at the first inn you come to: you will reach it
by dawn. Then go in the direction of the sunrise."

We embraced each other. We had to part. And who knew for how long?

Marton was nervous. "Let us go! Let Lorand too hurry on _his_ way."

Why, ten years is a very long way. By that time we should be growing
old.

"Love mother in my place. Then remember your word of honor." Lorand
whispered these words. Then he kissed me and in a few moments had
disappeared from my sight down the lower road among the hills.

Who knew when I should see him again?

Marton's laugh awoke me from my reverie.

"You know--" he inquired with a voice that showed his inclination to
laugh--"You know ha! ha--you know why I told Master Lorand not to go in
the same direction as the carriage?"

"No."

"Did you not recognize the coachman? It was Moczli."

"Moczli?"

"Do you know who was inside the carriage?--Guess!--Well, it was Madame."

"Balnokhazy's wife?"

"The same--with that certain actor."

"With whose passport Lorand was to have eloped?"

"Well if one is on his way to elope--it is all the same:--one must have
a companion, if not the one, then the other.'"

It was all a fable to me. But such a mysterious fable that it sent a
cold chill all over me.

"But where could they go?"

"Where?--Well, as far as the frontier, perhaps. Anyhow, as far as the
contents of that bag, which Moczli handed into the carriage after her
ladyship, will last.--Hai-dia-do."

Now it was really exuberance of spirits that made old Marton sing in
Tyrolese manner, that refrain,