rribly perceived
their error.

Marsa might have known of all this if she had, for a moment, doubted
Menko's word. But how was she to suspect that the young Count was
capable of a lie or of concealing such a secret? Besides, she knew
hardly any one at Pau, as her physicians had forbidden her
any excitement; at the foot of the Pyrenees, she lived, as at
Maisons-Lafitte, an almost solitary life; and Michel Menko had been
during that winter, which he now recalled to Marsa, speaking of it as
of a lost Eden, her sole companion, the only guest of the house she
inhabited with Vogotzine in the neighborhood of the castle.

Poor Marsa, enthusiastic, inexperienced, her heart enamored with
chivalrous audacity, intrepid courage, all the many virtues which were
those of Hungary herself; Marsa, her mind imbued from her infancy with
the almost fantastic recitals of the war of independence, and later,
with her readings and reflections; Marsa, full of the stories of the
heroic past-must necessarily have been the dupe of the first being who,
coming into her life, was the personal representative of the bravery and
charm of her race. So, when she encountered one day Michel Menko, she
was invincibly attracted toward him by something proud, brave, and
chivalrous, which was characteristic of the manly beauty of the young
Hungarian. She was then twenty, very ignorant of life, her great
Oriental eyes seeing nothing of stern reality; but, with all her
gentleness, there was a species of Muscovite firmness which was betrayed
in the contour of her red lips. It was in vain that sorrow had early
made her a woman; Marsa remained ignorant of the world, without any
other guide than Vogotzine; suffering and languid, she was fatally at
the mercy of the first lie which should caress her ear and stir her
heart. From the first, therefore, she had loved Michel; she had, as she
herself said, believed that she loved him with a love which would never
end, a very ingenuous love, having neither the silliness of a girl who
has just left the convent, nor the knowledge of a Parisienne whom the
theatre and the newspapers have instructed in all things. Michel, then,
could give to this virgin and pliable mind whatever bent he chose; and
Marsa, pure as the snow and brave as her own favorite heroes, became his
without resistance, being incapable of divining a treachery or fearing
a lie. Michel Menko, moreover, loved her madly; and he thought only of
winning and keeping th