at every step.

"She is Princess Zilah! She--a princess! Nothing can wrest from her that
title which she has stolen! Princess be it, then; but the Prince has
the right to deal out life or death to his wife--to his wife and to the
lover of his wife!" with a spasmodic burst of laughter. "Her lover is
to be there; Menko is to be there, and I complain! The man whom I have
sought in vain will be before me. I shall hold him at my mercy, and I do
not thank the kind fate which gives me that joy! This evening! He will
be at her house this evening! Good! Justice shall be done!"

Every moment added to his fever. He would have given ten years of his
life if it were already evening. He waited impatiently for the hour
to come when he could go and surprise them. He even thought of meeting
Menko at the railway station on his arrival from Italy: but what would
be the use? Menko would be at Maisons; and he would kill him before her
face, in a duel if Menko would fight, or like a thief caught in the act
if he attempted to fly. That would be better. Yes, he would kill him
like a dog, if the other--but no! The Hungarian, struck in the presence
of the Tzigana, would certainly not recoil before a pistol. Marsa should
be the sole witness of the duel, and the blood of the Prince or of Menko
should spatter her face--a crimson stain upon her pale cheek should be
her punishment.

Early in the evening Andras left the hotel, after slipping into the
pocket of his overcoat a pair of loaded pistols: one of them he would
cast at Menko's feet. It was not assassination he wished, but justice.

He took the train to Maisons, and, on his arrival there, crossed the
railway bridge, and found himself almost alone in the broad avenue which
runs through the park. As he walked on through the rapidly darkening
shadows, he began to feel a strange sensation, as if nothing had
happened, and as if he were shaking off, little by little, a hideous
nightmare. In a sort of voluntary hallucination, he imagined that he was
going, as in former days, to Marsa's house; and that she was awaiting
him in one of those white frocks which became her so well, with her
silver belt clasped with the agraffe of opals. As he advanced, a host
of memories overwhelmed him. He had walked with Marsa under these great
lindens forming an arch overhead like that of a cathedral. He remembered
conversations they had had in the evening, when a slight mist silvered
the majestic park, and the white