my heart, that I despise
the fellow."

"Simply because he is pious? In the world of to-day, however, it is a
kind of courage to dare to show one's piety outwardly before a world of
scepticism and indifference. I should like to defend him against you."

"Would you? Very well. Let us start at once. Draw up a chair and listen
to me. I shall be the devil's advocate. I shall tell you a story
concerning this fellow; I was merely a simple witness to the whole. The
man never did me any harm. I tell you once again that I have no
complaint to make either against mankind or against any beings that may
exist above or below. Sit beside me, my boy."

Lorand first of all stirred up the fire in the fire-place, and put out
the spirit lamp of the microscope, so that the room was lighted only by
the red glare of the log-fire and the moon, which was now rising above
the horizon and shed her pale radiance through the window.

"In my younger days I had a very dear friend, a relation, with whom I
had always gone to school and such fast comrades were we that even in
the class-room we sat always side by side. My comrade was unapproachably
first in the class, and I came next; sometime between us like a dividing
wall came this fellow Sarvoelgyi, who was even then a great flatterer and
sneak, and in this way sometimes drove me out of my place--and young
schoolboys think a great deal of their own particular places. Of course
I was even then so godless that they could not make sufficient
complaints against me. Later, during the French war, as the schools
suffered much, we were both sent together to Heidelberg. The devil
brought Sarvoelgyi after us. His parents were parvenues. What our parents
did they were always bound to imitate. They might have sent their boy to
Jena, Berlin, or Nineveh; but he must come just where we were."

"You have never mentioned your friend's name," said Lorand, who had
listened in anguish to the commencement of the story.

"Indeed?--Why there's really no need for the name. He was a friend of
mine. As far as the story is concerned it doesn't matter what they
called him. Still that you may not think I am relating a fable, I may as
well tell you his name. It was Loerincz Aronffy."

A cold numbness seized Lorand when he heard his father's name. Then his
heart began suddenly to beat at a furious pace. He felt he was standing
before the crypt door, whose secret he had so often striven to fathom.

"I never knew a fairer f