Flora's face that instant grew redder than ever, while Fanny's turned as pale as death.
"'Tis he!"
Both of them recognized him at the same time. 'Tis he, the loving husband of the one, the beloved ideal of the other.
Flora rushed towards him with a cry of joy. "Rudolf! Rudolf!" she cried.
Fanny, in dumb despair, turned her horse's head, and began to gallop back again.
"Good God!" cried Rudolf, whose face still burned with the kisses of his loving wife, "that lady's horse has run away with her!"
"That is Madame Kárpáthy!" cried Flora in alarm; and she whipped up her horse in the hope of overtaking her friend.
The lady was galloping helter-skelter across the plain. Every one fancied that her stallion had run away with her. Flora, old Palko, Mike Kis, and Count Gregory vainly sped after her; they could not get near her: only Rudolf was beginning to catch her up.
And now the stallion had reached the narrow dyke, and was galloping along it; on the other side of it, six fathoms in depth, were the waters of the Berettyo. A single stumble, and all would be over. But now Rudolf was catching her up, and he was the best horseman of them all. And now he was level with her. It was the first time in his life that he had seen this woman. He had no
idea that he had met her many and many a time before, for he had never noticed her. The stallion, with foaming mouth, rushed on, with the lady clinging to him. Her face was pale and her bosom heaved. It was just at this moment that the young man came abreast of her; her flying locks flapped his face: and she had a hundredfold more reasons now than ever for wishing to die at that moment. This youth, this ideal of her romantic dreams, was the husband of her dearest, her noblest, her loveliest friend.