devotion she knew so
well.

He was not astonished at her sudden frankness, at the confidence
displayed at a first meeting; and it seemed to him that he had long been
acquainted with this Tzigana, whose very name he had been ignorant of
a few hours before. It appeared to him quite simple that Marsa should
confide in him, as he on his side would have related to her his whole
life, if she had asked it with a glance from her dark eyes. He felt that
he had reached one of the decisive moments of his life. Marsa called up
visions of his youth-his first tender dreams of love, rudely broken by
the harsh voice of war; and he felt as he used to feel, in the days
long gone by, when he sat beneath the starry skies of a summer night
and listened to the old, heart-stirring songs of his country and the
laughter of the brown maidens of Budapest.

"Prince," said Marsa Laszlo, suddenly, "do you know that I have been
seeking you for a long time, and that when the Baroness Dinati presented
you to me, she fulfilled one of my most ardent desires?"

"Me, Mademoiselle? You have been seeking me?"

"Yes, you. Tisza, of whom I spoke to you, my Tzigana mother, who bore
the name of the blessed river of our country, taught me to repeat your
name. She met you years ago, in the saddest moment of your life."

"Your mother?" said Andras, waiting anxiously for the young girl to
continue.

"Yes, my mother."

She pointed to the buckle which clasped the belt of her dress.

"See," she said.

Andras felt a sudden pang, which yet was not altogether pain, dart
through his heart, and his eyes wandered questioningly from the buckle
to Marsa's face. Smiling, but her beautiful lips mute, Marsa seemed
to say to him: "Yes, it is the agraffe which you detached from your
soldier's pelisse and gave to an unknown Tzigana near your father's
grave."

The silver ornament, incrusted with opals, recalled sharply to Prince
Zilah that sad January night when the dead warrior had been laid in his
last resting-place. He saw again the sombre spot, the snowy fir-trees,
the black trench, and the broad, red reflections of the torches, which,
throwing a flickering light upon the dead, seemed to reanimate the pale,
cold face.

And that daughter of the wandering musicians who had, at the open grave,
played as a dirge, or, rather, as a ringing hymn of resurrection and
deliverance, the chant of the fatherland-that dark girl to whom he
had said: "Bring me this jewel, and come