“But still the organized aristocracy had its revenge—­it had its will of me, after all.  There came to me, as there had to my mother, an imperial order.  In punishment for my fancies and vagaries, I was condemned to marry a certain nobleman.  That was the whim of the new emperor, Ferdinand, the degenerate.  He took the throne when I was but sixteen years of age.  He chose for me a degenerate mate from his own sort.”  She choked, now.

“You did marry him?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  Debauche, rake, monster, degenerate, product of that aristocracy which had oppressed us, I was obliged to marry him, a man three times my age!  I pleaded.  I begged.  I was taken away by night.  I was—­I was—­They say I was married to him.  For myself, I did not know where I was or what happened.  But after that they said that I was the wife of this man, a sot, a monster, the memory only of manhood.  Now, indeed, the revenge of the aristocracy was complete!”

She went on at last in a voice icy cold.  “I fled one night, back to Hungary.  For a month they could not find me.  I was still young.  I saw my people then as I had not before.  I saw also the monarchies of Europe.  Ah, now I knew what oppression meant!  Now I knew what class distinction and special privileges meant!  I saw what ruin it was spelling for our country—­what it will spell for your country, if they ever come to rule here.  Ah, then that dream came to me which had come to my father, that beautiful dream which justified me in everything I did.  My friend, can it—­can it in part justify me—­now?

“For the first time, then, I resolved to live!  I have loved my father ever since that time.  I pledged myself to continue that work which he had undertaken!  I pledged myself to better the condition of humanity if I might.

“There was no hope for me.  I was condemned and ruined as it was.  My life was gone.  Such as I had left, that I resolved to give to—­what shall we call it?-the idee democratique.

“Now, may God rest my mother’s soul, and mine also, so that some time I may see her in another world—­I pray I may be good enough for that some time.  I have not been sweet and sinless as was my mother.  Fate laid a heavier burden upon me.  But what remained with me throughout was the idea which my father had bequeathed me—­”

“Ah, but also that beauty and sweetness and loyalty which came to you from your mother,” I insisted.

She shook her head.  “Wait!” she said.  “Now they pursued me as though I had been a criminal, and they took me back—­horsemen about me who did as they liked.  I was, I say, a sacrifice.  News of this came to that man who was my husband.  They shamed him into fighting.  He had not the courage of the nobles left.  But he heard of one nobleman against whom he had a special grudge; and him one night, foully and unfairly, he murdered.