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No: the sound, a howling rather than a barking, came from a long distance, from Sartrouville, beyond the Seine. "It is not Duna or Bundas," she murmured, "nor Ortog. What folly to remain here at the window! Menko will not come. Heaven grant that he does not come!" And she sighed a happy sigh as if relieved of a terrible weight.
Had Michel been before him, Andras would have seized the young man by the throat, and strangled him on the spot; but, when he reached the Rue d'Aumale, he did not find Menko. "The Count left town yesterday," said the servant, in answer to his question. "Yesterday! Where has he gone?" "The Count must have taken the steamer to-day at Havre for New York.
Menko grasped the long, white hand extended to him. "My dear Labanoff, it is not difficult to guess that you are going on some dangerous errand." Smiling: "I will not do you the injustice to believe you a nihilist." Labanoff's blue eyes flashed. "No," he said, "no, I am not a nihilist. Annihilation is absurd; but liberty is a fine thing!"
Menko grasped the long, white hand extended to him. "My dear Labanoff, it is not difficult to guess that you are going on some dangerous errand." Smiling: "I will not do you the injustice to believe you a nihilist." Labanoff's blue eyes flashed. "No," he said, "no, I am not a nihilist. Annihilation is absurd; but liberty is a fine thing!"
It was at a ball, at the English embassy, after her return from Pau, that, while smiling and happy, she overheard between two Viennese, strangers to her, this short dialogue, every word of which was like a knife in her heart: "What a charming fellow that Menko is!" "Yes; is his wife ugly or a humpback? or is he jealous as Othello? She is never seen." "His wife! Is he married?"
But he had punished, since he had inflicted upon her that living death insanity. And he asked himself whether he should not pardon Princess Zilah, punished, repentant, almost dying. He knew that she was now at Maisons, cured of her insanity, but still ill and feeble, and that she lived there like a nun, doing good, dispensing charity, and praying praying for him, perhaps. For him or for Menko?
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!
"No," said Andras. "The one whom I expected to find here was not you." "Who was it, then?" "Michel Menko!" Yanski Varhely turned toward Marsa. She did not stir; she was looking at the Prince. "Michel Menko is dead," responded Varhely, shortly. "It was to announce that to the Princess Zilah that I am here."
She made a desperate effort to look him in the face; but she could not remove her eyes from that sealed package bearing the name Menko. Ah! that Michel! She had forgotten him! Miserable wretch! He returned, he threatened her, he was about to avenge himself: she was sure of it! That paper contained something horrible.
He might have pardoned her, perhaps, and accepted the young girl, the widow of that passion. Widow? No, not while Menko lived. Oh! if he were dead! And Zilah repeated, with a fierce longing for vengeance: "If he were dead!" That is, if there were not between them, Zilah and Marsa, the abhorred memory of the lover! Well! if Menko were dead?
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