Strangely enough, after this confession she felt far more sorry for poor Béla than she had done before, and she cried her eyes out both before and after the funeral because, do what she would, she always saw him before her as he was that last day of his life—quarrelsome, dictatorial, tyrannical—and she remembered how she had almost hated him for his bullying ways and compared him in her mind with Andor's kindness and chivalry.
And now she cried with remorse because she had hated him during the last hours of his life; she cried because he had gone to his death unloved, and lay now in his coffin unregretted; she cried because her heart was full and heavy and because in the past week—before her wedding day—she had swallowed so many unshed tears.
And while she felt miserable and not a little forlorn she didn't want to see anybody, least of all Andor. Whenever she thought of Andor, the same remorse about Béla gnawed again at her heart, for when she thought of him she not only felt at peace, but it seemed as if a ray of happiness illumined the past darkness of her life.
Once or twice during the last day or two, when she had sat stitching, she caught herself singing softly to herself, and once she knew for certain that she had smiled.
Then the day came when Andor called at the house. Irma fortunately was out, having coffee and gossip with a friend. No doubt he had watched until he was sure that she was well out of the way. Then he knocked at the door and entered.
Elsa was sitting as usual on the low chair close by the sick man. She looked up when he entered and all at once the blood rushed to her pale cheeks.
"May I come in?" he asked diffidently.
"If you like, Andor," she replied.
He threw down his hat and then came to sit on the corner of the table in his favorite attitude and as close to Elsa as he dared. The eyes of the paralytic had faintly lit up at his approach.
"Are you quite well, Elsa?" he asked after a long pause, during which the girl thought that she could hear the beating of her own heart.