to have escaped from the red
death. And indeed the plague was raging fearfully in that district, and
dying wretches were writhing convulsively in the streets outside. He
himself must remain on the spot. He was bound by his official duties to
visit the very houses of these persons who, half an hour ago, had
combined to torture him, and whose families were now themselves
suffering torments in the grip of this unknown disease. Nevertheless, he
required the escort of two armed men, for, as he jocosely observed, "The
Deuce is in it when patients would compel the doctor to drink his own
drugs."

* * * * *

Hetfalusy had the felicity of embracing his long-lost grandchild before
he died. The child accepted him as her grandpapa, but begged that she
might have as her dear papa besides, good old Zudar, who had loved her
so much.

Hetfalusy nodded his consent, and pressed the coarse palm of the
headsman with his own gentlemanly hand. Nobody told the child that she
had a perfect right to call Zudar her father, inasmuch as her real
father, who had cast her from him, now lay frightfully disfigured in a
grave he had dug with his own hand.

Hetfalusy indeed never mentioned the name of his son-in-law again.

Then they laid him in the carriage already prepared for him, and little
Elise sat beside him and nursed his head in her lap. Oh, by this time,
she was very well used to nursing old people.

Maria and Imre accompanied the carriage on foot all the way to town.
Yet, once again, they were forced to fight their way through armed bands
of rebels, but after that they reached the town peaceably enough.

The General had given orders that Hetfalusy should be conducted straight
to his house as soon as the old man arrived.

Boundless was the joy of the worthy General to welcome in his home as a
guest the man who, once upon a time, had been his mortal foe.

Now indeed they could pardon each other everything.

Hetfalusy knew, at last, why the General had abandoned his girl so
suddenly, and how could the iron man help forgiving him who had sinned
greatly against him it is true, but, at the same time, had suffered so
terribly for it.

It was only mental excitement which still kept the life in the old man's
shattered body. He survived for another six months. His bodily wounds
healed but slowly, and still more slowly the wounds of the spirit. He
saw his only son happy in the love of the noblest, the rarest o