her heart.
Not daring to appear before Andras, not even thinking of such a thing
as seeking him, she resolved to wait some opportunity, some chance, she
knew not what. Suddenly, she thought of Yanski Varhely. Through Varhely,
she might be able to say to Andras all that she wished her husband--her
husband! the very word made her shudder with shame--to know of the
reason of her crime. She wrote to the old Hungarian; but, as she
received no response, she left Maisons-Lafitte and went to Varhely's
house. They did not know there, where the Count was; but Monsieur Angelo
Valla would forward any letters to him.

She then begged the Italian to send to Varhely a sort of long
confession, in which she asked his aid to obtain from the Prince the
desired interview.

The letter reached Yanski while he was at Vienna. He answered it with a
few icy words; but what did that matter to Marsa? It was not Varhely's
rancor she cared for, but Zilah's contempt. She implored him again, in
a letter in which she poured out her whole soul, to return, to be there
when she should tell the Prince all her remorse--the remorse which was
killing her, and making of her detested beauty a spectre.

There was such sincerity in this letter, wherein a conscience sobbed,
that, little by little, in spite of his rough exterior, the soldier,
more accessible to emotion than he cared to have it appear, was
softened, and growled beneath his moustache--

"So! So! She suffers. Well, that is something."

He answered Marsa that he would return when he had finished a work
he had vowed to accomplish; and, without explaining anything to the
Tzigana, he added, at the end of his letter, these words, which,
enigmatical as they were, gave a vague, inexplicable hope to Marsa "And
pray that I may return soon!"

The day after he had sent this letter to Maisons-Lafitte, Varhely
received from Ladany a message to come at once to the ministry.

On his arrival there, Count Josef handed him a despatch. The Russian
minister of foreign affairs telegraphed to his colleague at Vienna, that
his Majesty the Czar consented to the release of Count Menko, implicated
in the Labanoff affair. Labanoff would probably be sent to Siberia the
very day that Count Menko would receive a passport and an escort to the
frontier. Count Menko had chosen Italy for his retreat, and he would
start for Florence the day his Excellency received this despatch.

"Well, my dear minister," exclaimed Varhely, "