ere so different to
men, so much more sensitive and tender: and so now he was only chiding
himself for his roughness.

"I ought to have prepared you for my coming, Elsa," he said. "I am
afraid it has upset you."

"No, no, Andor, it's nothing," she protested.

"I did want to surprise you," he continued naively. "Not that I ever
really doubted you, Elsa, even though you never wrote to me. I thought
letters do get astray sometimes, and I was not going to let any
accursed post spoil my happiness."

"No, of course not, Andor."

"You did not write to me, did you, Elsa?" he asked.

"No, Andor. I did not write."

"But you had my letter? . . . I mean the one which I wrote to you before
I sailed for Australia."

"The postman," she murmured, "gave it to father when it came. Then the
next day father was stricken with paralysis; he never gave it to me.
Only last night . . ."

"My God," he broke in excitedly, "and yet you remained true to me all
this while, even though you did not know if I was alive or dead! Holy
Mother of God, what have I done to deserve such happiness?"

Then as she did not speak--for indeed the words in her throat were
choked by her tears--he continued talking volubly, like a man who is
intoxicated with the wine of joy:

"Oh! I never doubted you, Elsa! But I had planned my home-coming to be a
surprise to you. It was not a question of keeping faith, of course,
because you were never tokened to me, therefore I just wanted to read in
your dear eyes exactly what would come into them in the first moment of
surprise . . . whether it would be joy or annoyance, love or
indifference. And I was not deceived, Elsa, for when you first saw me
such a look came into your eyes as I would not exchange for all the
angels glances in Paradise."

Elsa sighed heavily. She felt so oppressed that she thought her heart
must burst. Andor's happiness, his confidence made the hideous truth
itself so much more terrible to reveal. And now he went on in the same
merry, voluble way.

"I went first to Goldstein's this morning. I thought Klara would tell me
some of the village gossip to while away the time before I dared present
myself here. I didn't want Pali bacsi or anybody to see me before I had
come to you. I didn't want anybody to speak to me before I had kissed
you. The Jews I didn't mind, of course. So I got Klara to walk with me
by a round-about way through the fields as far as this house; then I lay
in wait for a while