er have occurred to him that Madame Kengyelesy,
at the very moment when he had gone out into the street, had sat down on
the very same chair from which the baron had arisen, taken into her hand
the very same pen in which the ink he had used was not yet dry, and
selecting a sheet of letter paper, written a few lines of her long
pointed pot-hooks to her friend, the Baroness Hatszegi: informing her in
a most friendly manner that she had succeeded in persuading Hatszegi to
exchange the bill that Koloman was suspected of forging for one of his
own in order to give his wife the opportunity of acknowledging the
signature as her own and putting a stop to all further legal
proceedings. All this was set forth with far greater elaboration than it
is here, but was nevertheless perfectly intelligible. The original bill
was appended to the letter and the letter was posted. Henrietta was
bound to receive it next day.

Imagine then the surprise of Hatszegi, who for the last three days had
been pacing impatiently up and down his room, naturally expecting every
moment that the countess would surrender at discretion and send for him
out of sheer gratitude, when the door was suddenly opened with
considerable impetuosity and in came--Henrietta. Before he could
sufficiently recover from his amazement to ask her what she was looking
for there, his wife fell on his neck, and, sobbing with emotion, came
out with some long rigamarole about delicacy,--gratitude--a delightful
surprise--and only half suspected kindness of heart--and a lot more of
unintelligible nonsense, winding up by begging his pardon if ever she
had unwittingly offended him and promising him that _after this_ she
would ever be his faithful slave!

_After this!_--after _what_?

It was only when his wife told him that she was alluding to that bill
for 40,000 florins which he had been so kind as to send her through the
countess, that some inkling of the truth burst upon him.

"Oh, that eh! It quite escaped my memory and is not worth mentioning,"
he cried, hiding his astonishment beneath the affectation of a
magnanimity which scorned even to remember such trifles.

Oh, if the countess had been able to see him at that moment, how she
would have laughed!

Every drop of Leonard's blood seemed to turn to gall. How ridiculous he
had been made to appear by a woman's nobility, and the consciousness
thereof was still further embittered by the artless and innocent
gratitude of that ot