nto the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood
still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy
dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been
mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy.

From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his
own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news
reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur
of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of
the Rakoczy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited
their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial
music.

But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have
slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of
flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in
the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and
the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the
pungent odour of the sunflowers.

Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long
dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning
just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased
to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to
become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye
to the kind priest.

Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the
soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange,
strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever
robbed him of happiness.

It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now
waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had
done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he
had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonifacius himself came to the
door.

His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of
Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the
lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart,
chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so
quickly come to his eyes.

"It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man
into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true,
or you would not have cried w