"What is the matter?" she asked in trembling anxiety.
Lorand could not speak. He merely showed her the letter he had read.
Czipra could not understand the writing. She did not know how one could poison another with dumb letters, could wound his heart to its depths, and murder it. She merely saw that the letter made Lorand ill.
She recognized that rose-colored paper, those fine characters.
"Melanie wrote that."
By way of reply Lorand in bitter inexpressible pain turned his gaze towards the letter.
And the gypsy girl knew what that gaze said, knew what was written in that letter: with a wild beast's passion she tore it from Lorand's hand and passionately shred it into fragments and cast it on the ground, then trampled upon its pieces, as one tramples upon running spiders.
Thereupon she hid her face in her hands and wept in Lorand's stead.
Lorand went towards her and taking her hand, said sadly:
"You see, such are not the gypsy girls whose faces are brown, who are born under tents, and who cut cards, and make that their religion."