In a state bordering on frenzy, Zilah returned to his hotel, thinking: 

“He will be with her this evening!”

This was worse than all the rest.  How could he punish her?

Punish her?

Why not?  Was not Marsa Laszlo his wife?  That villa of Maisons-Lafitte, where she thought herself so safe, was his by law.  He, the husband, had a right to enter there at any hour and demand of his wife an account of his honor.

“She wished this name of Zilah!  Well! she shall know at least what it costs and what it imposes upon her!” he hissed through his clenched teeth.  He walked nervously to and fro in the library of his hotel, his excitement increasing at every step.

“She is Princess Zilah!  She—­a princess!  Nothing can wrest from her that title which she has stolen!  Princess be it, then; but the Prince has the right to deal out life or death to his wife—­to his wife and to the lover of his wife!” with a spasmodic burst of laughter.  “Her lover is to be there; Menko is to be there, and I complain!  The man whom I have sought in vain will be before me.  I shall hold him at my mercy, and I do not thank the kind fate which gives me that joy!  This evening!  He will be at her house this evening!  Good!  Justice shall be done!”

Every moment added to his fever.  He would have given ten years of his life if it were already evening.  He waited impatiently for the hour to come when he could go and surprise them.  He even thought of meeting Menko at the railway station on his arrival from Italy:  but what would be the use?  Menko would be at Maisons; and he would kill him before her face, in a duel if Menko would fight, or like a thief caught in the act if he attempted to fly.  That would be better.  Yes, he would kill him like a dog, if the other—­but no!  The Hungarian, struck in the presence of the Tzigana, would certainly not recoil before a pistol.  Marsa should be the sole witness of the duel, and the blood of the Prince or of Menko should spatter her face—­a crimson stain upon her pale cheek should be her punishment.

Early in the evening Andras left the hotel, after slipping into the pocket of his overcoat a pair of loaded pistols:  one of them he would cast at Menko’s feet.  It was not assassination he wished, but justice.

He took the train to Maisons, and, on his arrival there, crossed the railway bridge, and found himself almost alone in the broad avenue which runs through the park.  As he walked on through the rapidly darkening shadows, he began to feel a strange sensation, as if nothing had happened, and as if he were shaking off, little by little, a hideous nightmare.  In a sort of voluntary hallucination, he imagined that he was going, as in former days, to Marsa’s house; and that she was awaiting him in one of those white frocks which became her so well, with her silver belt clasped with the agraffe of opals.  As he advanced, a host of memories overwhelmed him.