is dead," responded Varhely, shortly. "It was to announce
that to the Princess Zilah that I am here."

Andras gazed alternately upon the old Hungarian, and upon Marsa, who
stood there petrified, her whole soul burning in her eyes.

"Dead?" repeated Zilah, coldly.

"I fought and killed him," returned Varhely.

Andras struggled against the emotion which seized hold of him. Pale as
death, he turned from Varhely to the Tzigana, with an instinctive desire
to know what her feelings might be.

The news of this death, repeated thus before the man whom she regarded as
the master of her existence, had, apparently, made no impression upon
her, her thoughts being no longer there, but her whole heart being
concentrated upon the being who had despised her, hated her, fled from
her, and who appeared there before her as in one of her painful dreams in
which he returned again to that very house where he had cursed her.

"There was," continued Varhely, slowly, "a martyr who could not raise her
head, who could not live, so long as that man breathed. First of all, I
came to her to tell her that she was delivered from a detested past.
Tomorrow I should have informed a man whose honor is my own, that the one
who injured and insulted him has paid his debt."

With lips white as his moustache, Varhely spoke these words like a judge
delivering a solemn sentence.

A strange expression passed over Zilah's face. He felt as if some
horrible weight had been lifted from his heart.

Menko dead!

Yet there was a time when he had loved this Michel Menko: and, of the
three beings present in the little salon, the man who had been injured by
him was perhaps the one who gave a pitying thought to the dead, the old
soldier remaining as impassive as an executioner, and the Tzigana
remembering only the hatred she had felt for the one who had been her
ruin.

Menko dead!

Varhely took from the mantelpiece the despatch he had sent from Florence,
three days before, to the Princess Zilah, the one of which Vogotzine had
spoken to Andras.

He handed it to the Prince, and Andras read as follows:

"I am about to risk my life for you. Tuesday evening either I shall be at
Maisons-Lafitte, or I shall be dead. I fight tomorrow with Count M. If
you do not see me again, pray for the soul of Varhely."

Count Varhely had sent this despatch before going to keep his appointment
with Michel Menko.

...................

It had been arranged that t