“My entire life belongs to you now,” said the Prince.  “Do with it what you will.”

“Well!  Then in a month I will give you your answer,” she said firmly.

“But,” said Andras, smiling beneath his blond moustache, “remember that I once, took for my motto the verses of Petoefi.  You know well those beautiful verses of our country: 

O Liberty!  O Love! 
These two I need. 
My chosen meed,
To give my love for Liberty,
My life for Love.

“Well,” he added, “do you know, at this moment the Andras Zilah of ’forty-eight would almost give liberty, that passion of his whole life, for your love, Marsa, my own Marsa, who are to me the living incarnation of my country.”

Marsa was moved to the depths of her heart at hearing this man speak such words to her.  The ideal of the Tzigana, as it is of most women, was loyalty united with strength.  Had she ever, in her wildest flights of fancy, dreamed that she should hear one of the heroes of the war of independence, a Zilah Andras, supplicate her to bear his name?

Marsa knew Yanski Varhely.  The Prince had brought him to see her at Maisons-Lafitte.  She was aware that Count Varhely knew the Prince’s most secret thoughts, and she was certain that Andras had confided all his hopes and his fears to his old friend.

“What do you think would become of the Prince if I should not marry him?” she asked him one day without warning.

“That is a point-blank question which I hardly expected,” said Yanski, gazing at her in astonishment.  “Don’t you wish to become a Zilah?”

Any hesitation even seemed to him insulting, almost sacrilegious.

“I don’t say that,” replied the Tzigana, “but I ask you what would become of the Prince if, for one reason or another—­”

“I can very easily inform you,” interrupted Varhely.  “The Prince, as you must be aware, is one of those men who love but once during their lives.  Upon my word of honor, I believe that, if you should refuse him, he would commit some folly, some madness, something—­fatal.  Do you understand?”

“Ah!” ejaculated Marsa, with an icy chill in her veins.

“That is my opinion,” continued Yanski, harshly.  “He is wounded.  It remains with you to decide whether the bullet be mortal or not.”

Varhely’s response must have had great weight in Marsa Laszlo’s reflections, full of anguish, fever, revolt and despair as they were, during the few weeks preceding the day upon which she had promised to tell Prince Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not.  It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana.  But the Prince was not cool enough to analyze an intonation.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I have suffered so much during these weeks of doubt; but this happiness makes amends for all.”

“Do you know what Varhely said to me?” asked Marsa.