her face, that she could be serious for a
moment.

I risked one more audacious attempt in this matter.

I wrote to Lorand, putting before him that the horizon all round was
already so clear, that he might march round the country to the sound of
trumpets, announcing that he is so and so, without finding anyone to
arrest him, as it was the same whether it was ten years or eight, he
might let us off the last two years, and admit us to him.

Lorand wrote back these short lines in answer:

"We do not bargain about that for which we gave our word of honor."

It was a very brief refusal.

I troubled him no more with that request. I waited and endured, while
the days passed.... Ah, Lorand, for your sake I sacrificed two years of
heaven on earth!

CHAPTER XX

THE FATAL DAY!

It had come at last!

We had already begun to count the days that remained.

One week before the final day, I received a letter from Lorand, in which
he begged me not to go to meet him at Lankadomb, but rather to give a
rendezvous in Szolnok: he did not wish the scene of rapture to be
spoiled by the sarcasms of Topandy.

I was just as well pleased.

For days all had been ready for the journey. I hunted up everything in
the way of a souvenir which I had still from those days ten years before
when I had parted from Lorand, even down to that last scrap of
paper,[70] which now occupied my every thought.

[Footnote 70: The paper of Madame Balnokhazy's letter which was used for
the fatal lot-drawing.]

It would have been labor lost on my part to tell the ladies how bad the
roads in the lowlands are at that time of year, that in any case Lorand
would come to them a day later. Nor indeed did I try to dissuade them
from making the journey. Which of them would have remained home at such
a time? Which of them would have given up a single moment of that day,
when she might once more embrace Lorand? They both came to me.

We arrived at Szolnok one day before Lorand: I only begged them to
remain in their room until I had spoken with Lorand.

They promised and remained the whole day in one room of the inn, while
I strolled the whole day about the courtyard on the watch for every
arriving carriage.

An unusual number of guests came on that day to the inn: gay companions
of Topandy from the neighborhood, to whom Lorand had given a rendezvous
there. Some I knew personally, the others by reputation; the latter's
acquaintance too was soon made.