And Gyuri was just wishing for their appearance while madame was thinking with horror of them. As he sat face to face with the girl, he decided to marry her—because of the umbrella. The girl was certainly pretty, but even had she not been so, the umbrella was worth the sacrifice. St. Peter had told him what to do, and he would follow his advice. Superstition, at which he had laughed the day before, had taken possession of him, and made a place for itself among his more rational thoughts. He felt some invisible power pushing him on to take this step. What power was it? Probably St. Peter, who had advised him in his dream to take it. But how was he to set to work? That was what was troubling him the whole time. How convenient it would be if there were some romance nowadays, as in olden times or in novels; for instance, if robbers were now to appear on the scene, and he could shoot them down one after the other with his revolver, and so free Veronica, who would then turn to him and say:
But as matters were at present, he did not dare to take any steps in the right direction; the words he had so well prepared seemed to stick in his throat. Doubts arose in his mind; supposing she had not taken a fancy to him! Supposing she were already in love! She must have seen other men besides himself, and if so, they must have fallen in love with her. Something ought to happen to help matters on a little.
But no robbers came, there probably were none; it was a poor neighborhood, nothing grew there, not even a robber.
After they had passed the wood, they saw an old castle among the trees, on the top of a hill. It was the Castle of Slatina, had formerly belonged to the Czobors, and was now the property of the Princes of Coburg.
They had to stop at an inn to feed the horses, and Veronica proposed their going to look at the castle, of which an old man had charge; he would show them over it. The innkeeper assured them some of the rooms were just as the Czobors had left them; in the court were a few old cannon, and in the house a collection of curious old armor, and some very interesting family portraits, among them that of a little girl, Katalin Czobor, who had disappeared from her home at the age of seven. Veronica was very interested in the child.
"And what happened to her?" she asked.
"The poor child has never turned up to this day!" sighed the innkeeper.
"And when was it she disappeared?"
"About three hundred years ago," he answered with a smile, and then accompanied his guests up the mountain path that led to the castle.