bers.

The battle was irremediably lost. The chief criminal saw the toils
closing in on him but had no time to make his escape.

CHAPTER XXX

I BELIEVE....!

Day was dawning.

Topandy had not left Czipra since she had been wounded. He sat alone
beside her bed.

Servants and domestics had other things to do now: they were standing
before the magistrate, face to face with the captured robbers. The
magisterial inquiry demanded the presence of them all.

Topandy was alone with the wounded girl.

"Where is Lorand?" whispered Czipra.

"He drove over to the neighboring village to bring a doctor for you."

"No harm has come to him?"

"You might have heard his voice through the window, when all was over.
He could not come in, because the door was closed. His first care was to
bring a surgeon for you."

The girl sighed.

"If he comes too late...."

"Don't fret about that. Your wound is not fatal; only be calm."

"I know better," said the girl in a flush of fever. "I feel that I shall
not live."

"Don't worry, Czipra, you will get better," said Topandy, taking the
girl's hand.

And then the girl locked her five fingers in those of Topandy, so that
they were clasped like two hands in prayer.

"Sir, I know I am standing on the brink of the grave. I have now grasped
your hand. I have clasped it, as people at prayer are wont to clasp
their hands. Can you let me go down to the grave without teaching me
one prayer. This night the murderer's knife has pierced my heart to
liberate yours. Does not my heart deserve the accomplishment of its last
wish? Does not that God, who this night has liberated us both, me from
life, you from death, deserve our thanks?"

Topandy was moved. He said:

"Repeat after me."

And he said to her the Lord's Prayer.

The girl devoutly and between gasps repeated it after him.

How beautiful it is! What great words those are!

First she repeated it after him, then again said it over, sentence by
sentence, asking "what does this or that phrase mean?" "Why do we say
'our Father?' What is meant by 'Thy Kingdom?' Will he forgive us our
trespasses, if we forgive them that trespass against us? Will he deliver
us from every evil? What power there is in that 'Amen!'"--Then a third
time she repeated it alone before Topandy, without a single omission.

"Now I feel easier," she said, her face beaming with happiness.

The atheist turned aside and wept.

The shutters let in the rays