It was this hope which now attached her to life.  After her return to Maisons-Lafitte from Vaugirard, she would have killed herself if she had not so desired another interview where she could lay bare her heart.  Not daring to appear before Andras, not even thinking of such a thing as seeking him, she resolved to wait some opportunity, some chance, she knew not what.  Suddenly, she thought of Yanski Varhely.  Through Varhely, she might be able to say to Andras all that she wished her husband—­her husband! the very word made her shudder with shame—­to know of the reason of her crime.  She wrote to the old Hungarian; but, as she received no response, she left Maisons-Lafitte and went to Varhely’s house.  They did not know there, where the Count was; but Monsieur Angelo Valla would forward any letters to him.

She then begged the Italian to send to Varhely a sort of long confession, in which she asked his aid to obtain from the Prince the desired interview.

The letter reached Yanski while he was at Vienna.  He answered it with a few icy words; but what did that matter to Marsa?  It was not Varhely’s rancor she cared for, but Zilah’s contempt.  She implored him again, in a letter in which she poured out her whole soul, to return, to be there when she should tell the Prince all her remorse—­the remorse which was killing her, and making of her detested beauty a spectre.

There was such sincerity in this letter, wherein a conscience sobbed, that, little by little, in spite of his rough exterior, the soldier, more accessible to emotion than he cared to have it appear, was softened, and growled beneath his moustache—­

“So!  So!  She suffers.  Well, that is something.”

He answered Marsa that he would return when he had finished a work he had vowed to accomplish; and, without explaining anything to the Tzigana, he added, at the end of his letter, these words, which, enigmatical as they were, gave a vague, inexplicable hope to Marsa “And pray that I may return soon!”

The day after he had sent this letter to Maisons-Lafitte, Varhely received from Ladany a message to come at once to the ministry.

On his arrival there, Count Josef handed him a despatch.  The Russian minister of foreign affairs telegraphed to his colleague at Vienna, that his Majesty the Czar consented to the release of Count Menko, implicated in the Labanoff affair.  Labanoff would probably be sent to Siberia the very day that Count Menko would receive a passport and an escort to the frontier.  Count Menko had chosen Italy for his retreat, and he would start for Florence the day his Excellency received this despatch.

“Well, my dear minister,” exclaimed Varhely, “thank you a thousand times.  And, with my thanks, my farewell.  I am also going to Florence.”

“Immediately?”

“Immediately.”

“You will arrive there before Menko.”

“I am in a hurry,” replied Varhely, with a smile.