answer which fell from Panna's
tongue, "he isn't at home, and won't come before morning. He has been
called to a farm two miles off."

"H'm! And you are leaving the sick man all alone?"

"He isn't alone, a neighbour is with him."

"Wouldn't it be better for you to ask the neighbour to go to the city,
and stay with your father yourself?"

"To cut the matter short, neighbour," Panna, who had grown terribly
impatient, now burst forth, "will you take me or not? I'll answer your
foolish questions on the way."

The peasant cautiously named the price of the ride, which Panna,
without a word of objection, instantly placed in his hand, after which
he at last went to draw out the waggon and harness the horses. A few
minutes later the vehicle was rolling over the dusty high-road.

Panna, wrapped in her shawl, sat on a bundle of straw which the peasant
had put in to furnish a seat for his passenger, staring with dilated
eyes at the landscape, illumined by a soft radiance. It was a
marvellously beautiful night in May. The full moon was shining in a
cloudless sky, the ripening grain waved mysteriously to and fro in the
white light, over the darker meadows a light mist was rising which,
stirred by the faint breeze, gathered into strange shapes, then
dispersed again, now rose a little, now sank, so that the straggling
bushes scattered here and there alternately appeared above the floating
vapour and were submerged in it; the fragrance of the wild flowers
mingled with the fresh exhalations from the damp earth and gave the
warm air a stimulating aroma. Now and then, where the bushes grew more
thickly along the edge of the road, the rapturous songs of the
nightingales were heard, the only sound, except the distant barking of
a dog, or the buzzing of a huge night-beetle flitting past the waggon,
which, at times, interrupted the silence of the night.

But Panna's senses were closed to all this varied beauty. Her whole
existence, all her thoughts and feelings were now centred upon a single
point, the purpose which brought her to the city. With a torturing
effort, which drove the blood to her brain, she again reviewed the
events of the past month, of her whole life. She strove to examine
them on all sides, judge them impartially, consider them from various
standpoints.

Was it right that Abonyi should now be at liberty to move about as the
great lord he had always been, after being permitted to make himself
comfortable fo