Marsa saw that he was about to leave the room; and, moving away from the marble against which she had been leaning, with a smile radiant with the joy of a recovered pride, she held out her hand to Yanski, and, in a voice in which there was an accent of almost terrible gratitude for the act of justice which had been accomplished, she said, firmly:
“I thank you, Varhely!”
Varhely made no reply, but passed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The husband and wife, after months of torture, anguish, and despair, were alone, face to face with each other.
Andras’s first movement was one of flight. He was afraid of himself. Of his own anger? Perhaps. Perhaps of his own pity.
He did not look at Marsa, and in two steps he was at the door.
Then, with a start, as one drowning catches at a straw, as one condemned to death makes a last appeal for mercy, with a feeble, despairing cry like that of a child, a strange contrast to the almost savage thanks given to Varhely, she exclaimed:
“Ah! I implore you, listen to me!”
Andras stopped.
“What have you to say to me?” he asked.