a
sweet intoxication. Her head felt heavy, and in her whole body she felt
a pleasant languor. She had wished to sink thus to rest, as nature was
awakening.

The doctor seemed very uneasy at this languidness, of which Marsa said:

"It is delicious!"

He whispered one evening to Andras:

"It is grave!"

Another sorrow was to come into the life of the Prince, who had known so
many.

A few days after, with a sort of presentiment, he wrote to Yanski
Varhely to come and spend a few months with him. He felt the need of his
old friend; and the Count hastened to obey the summons.

Varhely was astonished to see the change which so short a time had
produced in Marsa. In seven months her face, although still beautiful,
had become emaciated, and had a transparent look. The little hand, white
as snow, which she gave to Varhely, burned him; the skin was dry and
hot.

"Well, my dear Count," said Marsa, as she lay extended in a
reclining-chair, "what news of General Vogotzine?"

"The General is well. He hopes to return to Russia. The Czar has been
appealed to, and he does not say no."

"Ah! that is good news," she said. "He must be greatly bored at Maisons;
poor Vogotzine!"

"He smokes, drinks, takes the dogs out--"

The dogs! Marsa started. Those hounds would survive Menko, herself, the
love which she now tasted as the one joy of her life! Mechanically her
lips murmured, too low to be heard: "Ortog! Bundas!"

Then she said, aloud:

"I shall be very, glad if the poor General can return to St. Petersburg
or Odessa. One is best off at home, in one's own country. If you only
knew, Varhely, how happy I am, happy to be in Hungary. At home!"

She was very weak. The doctor made a sign to Andras to leave her for a
moment.

"Well," asked the Prince anxiously of Varhely, "how do you think she
is?"

"What does the doctor say?" replied Yanski. "Does he hope to save her?"

Zilah made no response. Varhely's question was the most terrible of
answers.

Ensconced in an armchair, the Prince then laid bare his heart to old
Varhely, sitting near him. She was about to die, then! Solitude! Was
that to be the end of his life? After so many trials, it was all to
end in this: an open grave, in which his hopes were to be buried. What
remained to him now? At the age when one has no recourse against fate,
love, the one love of his life, was to be taken away from him. Varhely
had administered justice, and Zilah had pardoned--for what? To