"Why, she is right. I was not the Joseph of the Bible: but does not love begin with pardon? Did I blame her for the possession of that ring she let fall in the water? And from whom could she know that my crime was worse than that which hung round that ring?
"And if I were steeped in that crime with which she charges me, how can an angel, who may know nothing of what happens in hell, put such a thought in these cold-blooded words.
"They wished to kill me.
"They wished to close the door behind me, as Johanna of Naples did to her husband, when he was struggling with his assassins.
"And they wished to wash clean the murderer's hands, throwing upon me the charge of having killed myself because my love was despised.
"They knew everything well, they calculated all with cold mercilessness. They waited for the hour to come, and whetted the knife before I took it in my hands.
"And yet I can never hate her! She has plunged the dagger into my heart, and I remember only the kiss she gave...."
That moment he felt a quiet pressure on his shoulder.
Confused, he looked up. Czipra was standing behind him. The poor gypsy girl could not allow anyone else to wait on Lorand: she had herself brought him the water.
The girl's face betrayed a tender fear: she might long have been observing him, unknown to him.