nd
upon the lips of this daughter of the puszta, Hungarian and Russian at
once, the cry seemed the very symbol of her exceptional nature.

"What is it you wish that I should do?" she said. "Die? yes, I would
willingly, gladly die for you, interposing my breast between you and
a bullet. Ah! I swear to you, I should be thankful to die like one of
those who bore your name. But, there is no fighting now, and I can
not shed my blood for you. I will sacrifice my life in another manner,
obscurely, in the shadows of a cloister. I shall have had neither lover
nor husband, I shall be nothing, a recluse, a prisoner. It will be well!
yes, for me, the prison, the cell, death in a life slowly dragged out!
Ah! I deserve that punishment, and I wish my sentence to come from you;
I wish you to tell me that I am free to disappear, and that you order
me to do so--but, at the same time, tell me, oh, tell me, that you have
forgiven me!"

"I!" said Andras.

In Marsa's eyes was a sort of wild excitement, a longing for sacrifice,
a thirst for martyrdom.

"Do I understand that you wish to enter a convent?" asked Andras,
slowly.

"Yes, the strictest and gloomiest. And into that tomb I shall carry,
with your condemnation and farewell, the bitter regret of my love, the
weight of my remorse!"

The convent! The thought of such a fate for the woman he loved filled
Andras Zilah with horror. He imagined the terrible scene of Marsa's
separation from the world; he could hear the voice of the officiating
bishop casting the cruel words upon the living, like earth upon the
dead; he could almost see the gleam of the scissors as they cut through
her beautiful dark hair.

Kneeling before him, her eyes wet with tears, Marsa was as lovely in her
sorrow as a Mater Dolorosa. All his love surged up in his heart, and a
wild temptation assailed him to keep her beauty, and dispute with the
convent this penitent absolved by remorse.

She knelt there repentant, weeping, wringing her hands, asking nothing
but pardon--a word, a single word of pity--and the permission to bury
herself forever from the world.

"So," he said, abruptly, "the convent cell, the prison, does not terrify
you?"

"Nothing terrifies me except your contempt."

"You would live far from Paris, far from the world, far from
everything?"

"In a kennel of dogs, under the lash of a slavedriver; breaking stones,
begging my bread, if you said to me: 'Do that, it is atonement!'"

"Well!" cried