aven sent a guardian angel to
check me in my wickedness.

Suddenly someone behind seized the hand raised to strike. I looked back,
and my arm dropped useless at my side.

It was Fanny who had seized my arm.

"Desi," cried my darling in a frightened voice: "This hand is mine: you
must not defile it."

I felt she was right. I allowed my uncontrollable anger to be overcome;
with my left hand I threw the trembling wretch out of the door--I do not
know where he fell--and then I turned round to clasp Fanny to my breast.

Already mother and grandmother were in the room.

The poor women had spent the whole evening of agony in the neighboring
room, keeping perfectly still, so as not to betray their presence there,
with the intention of listening for Lorand's voice: and they had
trembled through that last awful scene, of which they could hear every
word. When they heard my cry of rage, they could restrain themselves no
longer, but rushed in, and threw themselves among the revellers with a
cry of "My son, my son."

Everyone rose at their honored presence: this solemn picture, two
kneeling women embracing a son snatched from the jaws of death.

The surprising horror had reduced everyone to soberness: all tipsiness,
all winy drowsiness, had passed away.

"Lorand, Lorand," sobbed mother, pressing him frantically to her breast,
while grandmother, unable to speak or to weep, clutched his hand.

"Oh Lorand, dear...."

But Lorand grasped the two ladies' hands and led them towards me.

"It is him you must embrace, not me: his is the triumph."

Then he caught sight of that sweet angel bowed upon my shoulder, who was
still holding my hand in hers: he recollected those words with which
Fanny a moment before had betrayed our secret. "This hand is mine"--and
he smiled at me.

"Is that the way matters stand? Then you have your reward in your hands,
... and you can leave these two weeping women to me."

Therewith he threw himself on his face upon the floor before them, and
embracing their feet kissed the dust beneath them.

"Oh, my darlings! My loved ones."

CHAPTER XXI

THAT LETTER

What those who had so long waited, spoke and thought during that night
cannot be written down. These are sacred matters, not to be exposed to
the public gaze.

Lorand confessed all, and was pardoned for all.

And he was as happy in that pardon as a child who had been again
received into favor.

Lorand indeed felt as if he were be