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He paused as if to take breath: then "Three!" he exclaimed, in the tone of a man pronouncing a death-sentence; and the handkerchief fell. There were two reports in quick succession. Varhely stood erect in his position; Menko's ball had cut a branch above his head, and the green leaves fell fluttering to the ground. Michel staggered back, his hand pressed to his left side.
She waited, with the idle curiosity of a spectator who had no share in the drama, for the end of Menko's odious argument: "I lied because I loved you!"
A second time he would not escape Siberia." Varhely had made no reply; but the very idea that Michel Menko might be free made his head swim. There was, in the Count's eagerness to obtain Menko's liberty, something of the excitement of a hunter tracking his prey. He awaited Michel's departure from the fortress as if he were a rabbit in its burrow.
Although he knew nothing, Varhely had, nevertheless, guessed everything, and at once. The blow was too direct and too cruelly simple for the old Hungarian not to have immediately exclaimed, with rage: "Those were love-letters, and I gave them to him! Idiot that I was! I held those letters in my hand; I might have destroyed them, or crammed them one by one down Menko's throat!
He paused as if to take breath: then "Three!" he exclaimed, in the tone of a man pronouncing a death-sentence; and the handkerchief fell. There were two reports in quick succession. Varhely stood erect in his position; Menko's ball had cut a branch above his head, and the green leaves fell fluttering to the ground. Michel staggered back, his hand pressed to his left side.
This moment of happiness and solitude after all the noise and excitement was indeed a blessed one! Andras had placed upon the piano of the salon Michel Menko's package, and, seated upon the divan, he held both Marsa's hands in his, as she stood before him. "My best wishes, Princess!" he said. "Princess! Princess Zilah! That name never sounded so sweet in my ears before! My wife!
The gaze of the young man had precisely this aggressive look when he discovered, half hidden among the flowers, Marsa seated in the bow of the boat; then, almost instantaneously a singular expression of sorrow or anguish succeeded, only in its turn to fade away with the rapidity of the light of a falling star; and there was perfect calm in Menko's attitude and expression when Prince Zilah said to him: "Come, Michel, let me present you to my fiancee.
Count Josef evidently went zealously to work to obtain from the Russian Government Menko's release. He had promised Varhely, the evening he received his old comrade at dinner, that he would put all the machinery at work to obtain the fulfilment of his request. "I only ask you, if I attain the desired result, that you will do something to cool off that hotheaded Menko.
Menko's house was some distance from the station, at the very end of the little city. The bell at the gate opening into the garden, had been removed, as if to show that the master of the house did not wish to be disturbed. Varhely was obliged to pound heavily upon the wooden barrier. The servant who appeared in answer to his summons, was an Hungarian, and he wore the national cap, edged with fur.
Rapidly, and as if impelled, despite herself, Marsa caught the wrist of her husband in her icy hand, and, terrified, supplicating, she cried, in a wild, broker voice: "No, no, I implore you! No! Do not read it! Do not read it!" He contemplated her coldly, and, forcing himself to be calm, asked: "What does this parcel of Michel Menko's contain?" "I do not know," gasped Marsa. "But do not read it!
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