d of in that. One may love the
dead. I loved that woman, I love her now, and I shall never love
another."

Rudolf's heart went out to the young man.

"You remain here," he said, "I will leave you to yourself. I will wait
in the cemetery outside, and if I can be of any service to you command
me."

"Thank you, sir, I will go too; I have done what I came here to do."

The name of the dear departed was inscribed on the tomb in golden
letters, and these letters gleamed forth in the light of the snow:
"Madame Karpathy, _nee_ Fanny Meyer."

The young artisan removed his cap, and with the same respect, the same
reverence with which one touches the lips of the dead, he kissed every
letter of the word "Fanny."

"I am not ashamed of this weakness before you," said Alexander, standing
up again, "for you have a noble heart, and will not laugh at me."

Rudolf answered nothing, but he turned his head aside. God knows why,
but he could not have met the young man's eyes at that moment.

"And now, sir, we can go."

"Where will you spend the night? Come with me to Szentirma!"

"Thank you; you are very good to me, but I must return this very hour.
The moon will soon be up, and there will be light enough to see my way
by. I must make haste, for there's lots for me to do at home."

He could not prevail upon him; a man's sorrow has no desire to be
comforted.

Rudolf accompanied him to the wayside _csarda_, where the sledge was
awaiting him. He could not restrain himself from warmly pressing the
artisan's hand and even embracing him.

And Alexander did not guess the meaning of that warm grasp, or why this
great nobleman was so good to him.

Shortly afterwards the sledge disappeared in the darkness of the night
by the same road by which it had come. Rudolf returned to the
pine-trees, and paid another visit to the white monument. There he stood
and thought of the woman who had suffered so much, and who, perhaps, was
thinking of him there below. Her face stood before him now as it had
looked when she had followed with her eyes the rejected amaranth; as it
had looked when she galloped past him on her wild charger; as it had
looked when she had hidden it on his bosom in an agony of despairing
love, in order that there she might weep out her woe, amidst sweet
torture and painful joy, that secret woe which she had carried about
with her for years. And when he thought on these things, his fine eyes
filled with tears.

He noticed th