cry of agony would escape his lips. His face had
become ghastly in hue, his mouth was wide open as if ready for that cry;
his twitching fingers clutched at the neckband of his shirt.

But the cry never came: the wound was too deep and too deadly for
outward expression. He said nothing, and gradually his mouth closed and
his fingers ceased to twitch. Presently he rose, went to the door, and
pulled it open; he stood for a moment under the lintel, his arm leaning
against the frame of the door, and the soft September breeze blew
against his face and through his hair.

From far away down the village street came the sound of laughter and of
singing. The people of Marosfalva were very merry to-day, for it was
Kapus Elsa's wedding time and Eros Bela was being lavish with food and
wine and music. Nobody guessed that in this one cottage sorrow, deep and
lasting, had made a solemn entry and never meant to quit these two
loving hearts again.

CHAPTER XIII

"He must make you happy."

Andor shut the door once more. He did not want the people of the village
to see him just now.

He turned back quietly into the room, and went to sit at his usual
place, across the corner of the table. Elsa, mechanically, absently, as
one whose mind and soul and heart are elsewhere, was smoothing out the
creases in her gown made wet by Andor's tears.

"How did it all come about, Elsa?" he asked.

"Well, you know," she replied listlessly, "since Klara Goldstein told
you--that everyone here believed that you were dead. I did not believe
it myself for a long time, though I did think that if you had lived you
would have written to me. Then, as I had no news from you . . . no news
. . . and mother always wished me to marry Bela . . . why! I thought
that since you were dead nothing really mattered, and I might as well do
what my mother wished."

"My God!" he muttered under his breath.

"We were so poor at home," she continued, in that same listless,
apathetic voice, for indeed she seemed to have lost all capacity even
for suffering, "and father was so ill . . . he wanted comfort and good
food, and mother and I could earn so very little . . . Bela promised
mother that nice house in the Kender Road, he promised to give her cows
and pigs and chickens. . . . What could I do? It is sinful not to obey
your parents . . . and it seemed so selfish of me to nurse thoughts of
one whom I thought dead, when I could give my own mother and father all
the