small tray which Klara had pointed out to
him. Then he turned and looked around him: Klara was not there, and the
room was quite deserted. Apparently the sleepers of awhile ago had been
roused from their slumbers and had departed one by one. For a moment
Andor paused, wondering if he should tell Klara that he had been
successful in his errand. He could hear the murmur of the girl's voice
in the next room talking to her father.

No! On the whole he preferred not to meet her again: he didn't like the
woman, and still felt very wrathful against her for the impudent part
she had played at the feast this afternoon.

He had just made up his mind to go back to the presbytery where the kind
Pater had willingly given him a bed, when Eros Bela's broad, squat
figure appeared in the open doorway. He had a lighted cigar between his
teeth and his hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers; he held
his head on one side and his single eye leered across the room at the
other man.

When he encountered Andor's quick, savage glance he gave a loud, harsh
laugh.

"She gave it you straight enough, didn't she?" he said as he swaggered
into the room.

"You were listening?" asked Andor curtly.

"Yes. I was," replied Bela. "I was in here and I heard your voice, so I
stole out on to the verandah. You were not ten paces away; I could hear
every word you said."

"Well?"

"Well what?" sneered the other.

"What conclusion did you arrive at?"

"What conclusion?" retorted Bela, with a laugh. "Why, my good man, I
came to the conclusion that in spite of all your fine talk about God and
so on, and all your fine airs of a gentleman from Australia, you are
nothing but a low-down cur who comes sneaking round trying to steal a
fellow's sweetheart from him."

"I suppose you are right there, Bela," said Andor, with a quick,
impatient sigh and with quite unwonted meekness. "I suppose I am, as you
say, nothing but a low-down cur."

"Yes, my friend, that's just it," assented the other dryly; "but she's
let you know pretty straight, hasn't she? that she wouldn't listen to
your talk. Elsa will stick by me, and by her promise to me, you may bet
your shirt on that. She is too shrewd to think of exchanging the
security of to-day for any of your vague promises. She is afraid of her
mother and of me and of God's curses and so on, and she does not care
enough about you to offend the lot of us, and that's about how it
stands."

"You are right there,