.

When the gardener came out of the courtroom he saw Panna standing in
the corridor, where she had been waiting since her expulsion from the
court-room. Hurrying up to him, she asked with an anxious look, "Well?"

"Sentenced!" replied the gardener, turning his head away.

"Ah!" A low cry escaped her breast and her eyes sparkled. "Sentenced!
And when?"

The gardener gazed at her inquiringly.

"What do you mean by when?"

"Why, when will he be--executed?"

"Executed? you are out of your mind. He is sentenced to six months'
imprisonment."

Meanwhile they had gone down into the courtyard; at the gardener's
words Panna suddenly stood still, stared fixedly at him, and said in a
hollow tone:

"You know how I am, and what I feel, why do you jest so unpleasantly
with me?"

"What I tell you is the most bitter earnest."

"Man! Six months! You are drivelling! That is impossible! A man who
has murdered another can be acquitted, it may be said that he did not
kill him, that the guilt was not proved, I understand that; but when it
is admitted that he is guilty, he surely cannot be sentenced to six
months' imprisonment! That is a mockery of mankind. My brother
strikes a brutal officer--he is executed; the vine-dresser's Bandi
burns a miserable barn--he is executed. This man kills a human being
and gets six months' imprisonment. No, I cannot believe it."

The gardener contented himself with silently shrugging his shoulders in
reply to the woman's passionate outburst of feeling, and pursued his
way. Panna followed him with compressed lips. She could not help
believing his communication, but she continually revolved it in her
mind, still unable to comprehend its meaning fully. They were seated
in the carriage again, and had driven a considerable distance, when she
began once more:

"There are higher courts. It cannot be left so."

"No one entered an appeal, so the case will not go to the higher
courts."

"Then you think that this six months is the last utterance of justice?"

"The last, Panna; only the king or God can still change the sentence."

Panna's eyes flashed.

"The king can change the sentence, you say?"

"He, of course," replied her companion laconically.

Panna said nothing more on the way home. Only the gardener once heard
her murmur:

"Justice is a fine thing, a very fine thing."

CHAPTER VI.

It was late in the evening when Panna again reached Kisfalu. Her
father was a