esent, all the
hope of the future. With these words engraved upon heart and memory they
can afford to look more serenely upon these blank and dreary three
years.

It was as well to have spoken them; as well to have actually put into
words what they had already known in their hearts long ago. Now they can
afford to wait, and Andor will do it with confidence, he is a man and he
is free. He viewed the future as a master views his slave; the future is
his to do with what he likes, to mould, to shape in accordance with his
will.

The land which must one day be his, and Elsa his already! Andor almost
fell to wishing that the train would start quickly--so many seconds
would have been lived of those three intervening years.

Elsa tries to look as full of hope as he does; she is only a woman, and
the future is not hers to make at will. She is not the conqueror, the
lord and king of her own destiny; there are so many difficulties in the
path of her life which she would like to forget at this moment, so as
not to embitter the happiness which has come to her; there is her
shiftless mother and vagabond father, there is the pressure of poverty
and filial duty--it is easy for Andor--he is a man!

"You will wait for me, Elsa?" Andor asks for the twentieth time, and for
the twentieth time her lips murmur an assent, even though her heart is
heavy with foreboding.

There goes the horn!

"Elsa, my love, one more kiss," cries Andor, as he presses her closely,
ever more closely to his heart. "God bless you, my rose! You _will_ wait
for me?"

The engine gives a shrill whistle. All the men now--realizing the
danger--drag their women-folk away from the slowly-revolving wheels. The
gipsy musicians strike up the first spirited bars of the Rakoczy March,
as with much puffing and ponderous creakings and groanings the
heavily-laden train with its human freight steams away from the little
station.

"My son! my son!"

"Benko! my son!"

"Janos!"

"Endre!"

A few heartrending cries as each revolution of the wheels takes the lads
a little further away from their homes.

"Elsa, you will wait for me?" comes as a final, appealing cry from
Andor.

He stands in the door of the carriage, which he holds wide open, and
through a mist of tears which he no longer tries to suppress he sees
Elsa standing there, quite still--a small image of beauty and of sorrow.
The sun glints upon her hair, it shines and sparkles like living gold;
her hands ar