my
assistance, for I have to be off at once to Szeb and don't expect to be
back for a couple of days. It is possible that the gentlemen in question
may arrive during my absence which I should very much regret.
Nevertheless you may depend upon my hastening home as quickly as I can
to meet them here."

All this did not seem to interest Henrietta very much. Leonard noticed
it.

"Let the gentry, my dear, occupy the room overlooking the park, the
servants had better have the six rooms generally given to hunting
parties on the ground floor, with the four and twenty beds."

At these directions the lady looked at her lord with an expression of
surprised inquiry.

"I see," resumed her husband, "you are asking yourself what sort of
company that can be for whose master one room suffices while the
servants require six. I will tell you. It is the armed corps from Arad
which is charged with the capture of Fatia Negra and his associates. As
they will pass by this way I don't see how they can avoid calling at
Hidvar. In fact I have invited the magistrate who commands the corps to
make Hidvar the centre of his operations and if he is a sensible man he
will accept my invitation. The name of my guest I have not yet
mentioned," continued Leonard with easy levity, "it is Szilard Vamhidy,
a justice of the peace of the county of Arad--really a very nice young
man."

Henrietta became as white as a statue.

"You will greatly oblige me, my dear Henrietta, if you will do your best
to make our guest feel quite at home in our house. But you are a
sensible woman, so I have no need to press the point. Let me kiss your
hand--_au revoir_!"

Henrietta watched him go out, watched him get into his carriage and bowl
off and then began to weep and hide her head among the cushions that
nobody might hear her.

They are pursuing Fatia Negra! ... Szilard Vamhidy is pursuing Fatia
Negra!

He will come hither, he will enter this very castle. Leonard himself has
invited him!

He will certainly come to see his former love once more. The thought was
terrible!

But it must not, it should not happen.

Leonard himself had invited Vamhidy to his castle. This man relied too
much on the terror of a poor timid woman, he built too much on that
nimbus of terror which made him so horribly unassailable in her eyes.
What! first to invite the former lover of his wife to be his guest and
then show his indifference by choosing that very time to absent himself
fr