excitement.

"Your proper refuge is in your own heart," he said, gently, "and your
good deeds shall plead for you."

Theudelinde pressed the priest's hand to her burning forehead. Then
she rose from her kneeling position and stretched out her arms.

"Command me. Advise me. What shall I do?"

"Return to society, and take the place your rank and wealth entitle
you to hold."

The countess fell back a step, and stared at the abbe, her face all
astonishment.

"Return to the world! _I_ who left it five-and-twenty years ago! I
should be the laughing-stock of every one were I to seek, at my age,
pleasures which I long ago renounced."

"Countess, you have voluntarily thrown away that portion of your life
to which the world offers its best gifts; but there still remains to
you that other half, wherein you can acquire the esteem of the
world--that is, if you avail yourself of the means necessary for
success."

"My father, remember that in that circle which you wish me to enter I
shall meet nothing but contempt and humiliations. The present
generation don't know my name, my contemporaries despise me."

"But there is a magic circle in which every one is recognized and no
one is despised. Would you wish to enter this circle?"

"Place me in this circle, father. Where is it to be found?"

"I will tell you, countess. Your nation is passing through a crisis;
it may be called the battle for intellectual freedom. All are striving
to place themselves on a footing with the intellectuality of other
nations--philosophers, poets, industrials; men, women, boys,
gray-beards, magnates, and peasants. If they all knew how to strive
together they might attain their purpose, but all are divided; each
works for himself and by himself. Individual effort is doomed to
failure, but united, certain of success."

The countess listened in breathless astonishment. She did not
understand where the abbe was leading her.

"What is wanting in this tremendous struggle is a centre. The country
has no centre. Debreczyn is thoroughly Hungarian, but its religious
exclusiveness has narrowed its sphere of influence. Szegedin is well
suited, but it is far too democratic. Klausenburg is indeed a
Hungarian town. The aristocracy are to be found there, and a certain
amount of culture, but it lies beyond the Kiralyhago, and the days of
the Bethlens and the Bocskais are over. Pesth would be the proper
centre; it has every qualification. I have been through the