, until I saw Irma neni go out. I wanted you all to
myself at once . . . with no one by to intercept the look which you
would give me when first you recognized me."

"And . . . did Klara tell you anything?" she murmured under her breath.

"She told me of uncle Pali's illness," he said, more quietly, "and how
he seemed to have fretted about me lately . . . and that everyone here
thought that I was dead."

"Yes. What else?"

"Nothing else much," he replied, "for you may be sure I would not do
more than just mention your sweet name before that Jewess."

"And . . . when you mentioned my name . . . did she say anything?"

"No. She laughed rather funnily, I thought. But of course I would not
take any notice. She had always been rather jealous of you. And now that
I am a rich man . . ."

"Yes, Andor?"

"When I say a rich man," he said, with a careless shrug of his broad
shoulders, "I only mean comparatively, of course. I have saved three
thousand crowns"--(about L120)--"not quite as much as I should have
liked; but things are dear out there, and there was my passage home and
clothes to pay for. Still! three thousand crowns are enough to pay down
as a guarantee for a really good farm, and if Klara Goldstein spoke the
truth, and Pali bacsi is really so well disposed toward me, why, I need
not be altogether ashamed to present myself before your parents. Need I,
my dove?"

"Before my parents?" she murmured.

"Why, yes," he said, as he rose from the table now and came up quite
close to her, looking down with earnest, love-filled eyes on the
stooping figure of this young girl, who held all his earthly happiness
in her keeping; "you knew what I meant, Elsa, did you not, when I came
back to you the moment that I could, after all these years? It was only
my own poverty which kept me from your side all this long while. But you
did not think that I had forgotten you, did you, Elsa?--you could not
think that. How could a man forget you who has once held you in his arms
and kissed those sweet lips of yours? Why, there has not been a day or
night that I did not think of you. . . . Night and day while I worked in
that land which seemed so far away from home. Homesick I was--very
often--and though we all earned good money out there, the work was hard
and heavy; but I didn't mind that, for I was making money, and every
florin which I put by was like a step which brought me nearer to you."

"Andor!"

The poor girl was almost moan