which seemed to penetrate a man's most secret thoughts. The
soldier had become the diplomat.

"I had forgotten that thirty years have passed!" thought Varhely, a
little saddened.

Count Ladany made his old comrade sit down in one of the armchairs, and
questioned him smilingly as to his life, his friendships, Paris, Prince
Zilah, and led him gradually and gracefully to confide what he, Varhely,
had come to ask of the minister of the Emperor of Austria.

Varhely felt more reassured. Josef Ladany seemed to him to have remained
morally the same. The moustache had been cut off, the yellow hair had
fallen; but the heart was still young and without doubt Hungarian.

"You can," he said, abruptly, "render me a service, a great service.
I have never before asked anything of anybody; but I have taken this
journey expressly to see you, and to ask you, to beg you rather, to--"

"Go on, my dear Count. What you desire will be realized, I hope."

But his tone had already become colder, or perhaps simply more official.

"Well," continued Varhely, "what I have come to ask of you is; in
memory of the time when we were brothers in arms" (the minister started
slightly, and stroked his whiskers a little nervously), "the liberty of
a certain man, of a man whom you know."

"Ah! indeed!" said Count Josef.

He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and,
through his half-opened eyelids, examined Varhely, who looked him boldly
in the face.

The contrast between these two men was striking; the soldier with his
hair and moustache whitened in the harness, and the elegant government
official with his polished manners; two old-time companions who had
heard the whistling of the same balls.

"This is my errand," said Varhely. "I have the greatest desire that one
of our compatriots, now a prisoner in Warsaw, I think--at all events,
arrested at Warsaw a short time ago--should be set at liberty. It is of
the utmost importance to me," he added, his lips turning almost as white
as his moustache.

"Oh!" said the minister. "I fancy I know whom you mean."

"Count Menko."

"Exactly! Menko was arrested by the Russian police on his arrival at
the house of a certain Labanoff, or Ladanoff--almost my name in Russian.
This Labanoff, who had lately arrived from Paris, is suspected of a plot
against the Czar. He is not a nihilist, but simply a malcontent; and,
besides that, his brain is not altogether right. In short, Count Menko
is co