“So,” he said, abruptly, “the convent cell, the prison, does not terrify you?”

“Nothing terrifies me except your contempt.”

“You would live far from Paris, far from the world, far from everything?”

“In a kennel of dogs, under the lash of a slavedriver; breaking stones, begging my bread, if you said to me:  ‘Do that, it is atonement!’”

“Well!” cried Andras, passionately, his lips trembling, his blood surging through his veins.  “Live buried in our Hungary, forgetting, forgotten, hidden, unknown, away from all, away from Paris, away from the noise of the world, in a life with me, which will be a new life!  Will you?”

She looked at him with staring, terrified eyes, believing his words to be some cruel jest.

“Will you?” he said again, raising her from the floor, and straining her to his breast, his burning lips seeking the icy ones of the Tzigana.  “Answer me, Marsa.  Will you?”

Like a sigh, the word fell on the air:  “Yes.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

A NEW LIFE

The following day, with tender ardor, he took her away to his old Hungarian castle, with its red towers still bearing marks of the ravages of the cannon—­the castle which he never had beheld since Austria had confiscated it, and then, after long years, restored it to its rightful owner.  He fled from Paris, seeking a pure existence, and returned to his Hungary, to the country of his youth, the land of the vast plains.  He saw again the Danube and the golden Tisza.  In the Magyar costume, his heart beating more proudly under the national attila, he passed before the eyes of the peasants who had known him when a child, and had fought under his orders; and he spoke to them by name, recognizing many of his old companions in these poor people with cheeks tanned by the sun, and heads whitened by age.

He led Marsa, trembling and happy, to the door of the castle, where they offered him the wine of honor, drank from the ‘tschouttora’, the Hungarian drinking-vessel, the ‘notis’ and cakes made of maize cooked in cream.

Upon the lawns about the castle, the ‘tschiko’ shepherds, who had come on horseback to greet the Prince, drank plum brandy, and drank with their red wine the ‘kadostas’ and the bacon of Temesvar.  They had come from their farms, from their distant pusztas, peasant horsemen, like soldiers, with their national caps; and they joyously celebrated the return of Zilah Andras, the son of those Zilahs whose glorious history they all knew.  The dances began, the bright copper heels clinked together, the blue jackets, embroidered with yellow, red, or gold, swung in the wind, and it seemed that the land of Hungary blossomed with flowers and rang with songs to do honor to the coming of Prince Andras and his Princess.