o marry you? Answer frankly!"

"I should never have thought of such a thing."

A sob was heard in the next room, and then a noise as though some pieces
of furniture had been thrown down.

Sztolarik listened for a few moments, and then, pointing to the wall,
asked:

"Do you know what is on the other side?"

"I think it is the storeroom."

"I thought I heard some one sob."

"Perhaps one of the servants saw a mouse!"

And that is how a tragedy looks from the next room when the wall is
thin. If there is a thick wall it does not even seem so bad. One of the
servants had seen a mouse, or a heart had been broken; for who was to
know that despair and fright only have one sound to express them?

Veronica, with her illusions dispersed, ran out into the open air; she
wished to hear no more, only to get away from that hated place, for she
felt suffocating; away, away, as far as she could go.... And this all
seemed, from the next room, as though Widow Adamecz or Hanka had seen a
mouse. But, however it may have seemed to them, they had forgotten the
whole thing in half a minute.

"You say it would never have occurred to you to marry her. So you had
better not hurry with the wedding. Let us first see the umbrella and its
contents, and then we shall see what is to be done next."

Gyuri went on quietly smoking his cigarette and thought:

"Sztolarik is getting old. Fancy making such a fuss about it!"

"I have thought it well over," he went on aloud, "and there is no other
way of managing it; I must marry the girl."

Sztolarik got up from his chair, and came and stood in front of the
young man, fixing his eyes on him.

"But supposing you could get at your inheritance without marrying
Veronica?"

Gyuri could not help smiling.

"Why, I have just said," he exclaimed impatiently, "that it cannot be
done, but even if it could, I would not do it, for I feel as though she
also had a right to the fortune, as it has been in her possession so
long, and Providence seems to have sent it direct to her."

"But supposing you could get at it through Veronica?"

"That seems out of the question too."

"Really? Well, now listen to me, Gyuri, for I have something to tell
you."

"I am listening."

But his thoughts were elsewhere, as he drummed on the table with his
fingers.

"Well," went on Sztolarik, "when I went in to Huszak's this morning to
buy the two rings you wanted sent by the messenger (for I had no
intention of coming