sed by them,
Marsa involuntarily exclaimed, in the language of her mother "Be
szomoru!" (How sad it is!) The man, at her words, raised his head, and a
flash of joy passed over his face, which showed, or Marsa thought so (who
knows? perhaps she was mistaken), a love for his forsaken country. Well,
now, she did not know why, the remembrance of these poor beings returned
to her, and she said to herself that her ancestors, humble and
insignificant as these unfortunates in the dust and dirt of the highway,
would have been astonished and incredulous if any one had told them that
some day a girl born of their blood would wed a Zilah, one of the chiefs
of that Hungary whose obscure and unknown minstrels they were! Ah! what
an impossible dream it seemed, and yet it was realized now.

At all events, a man's death did not lie between her and Zilah. Michel
Menko, after lying at death's door, was cured of his wounds. She knew
this from Baroness Dinati, who attributed Michel's illness to a sword
wound secretly received for some woman. This was the rumor in Paris. The
young Count had, in fact, closed his doors to every one; and no one but
his physician had been admitted. What woman could it be? The little
Baroness could not imagine.

Marsa thought again, with a shudder, of the night when the dogs howled;
but, to tell the truth, she had no remorse. She had simply defended
herself! The inquiry begun by the police had ended in no definite result.
At Maisons-Lafitte, people thought that the Russian house had been
attacked by some thieves who had been in the habit of entering unoccupied
houses and rifling them of their contents. They had even arrested an old
vagabond, and accused him of the attempted robbery at General
Vogotzine's; but the old man had answered: "I do not even know the
house." But was not this Menko a hundred times more culpable than a
thief? It was more and worse than money or silver that he had dared to
come for: it was to impose his love upon a woman whose heart he had
well-nigh broken. Against such an attack all weapons were allowable, even
Ortog's teeth. The dogs of the Tzigana had known how to defend her; and
it was what she had expected from her comrades.

Had Michel Menko died, Marsa would have said, with the fatalism of the
Orient: "It was his own will!" She was grateful, however, to fate, for
having punished the wretch by letting him live. Then she thought no more
of him except to execrate him for having poisone