He said this in a broken voice, and with that he burst into a loud and long roar of laughter, and immediately after wept as if his heart would break.
The mind of Dame Apafi instantly grasped the whole truth.
"Speak, man!" cried she passionately, seizing the fellow by the shoulder; "you have brought my husband back with you?"
Andy waved his fist behind him and nodded his head; he laughed and wept at the same time; but, to save his life, he could not have uttered a word.
Dame Apafi, with a sob and a cry of boundless joy, rushed to the door which already stood ajar. Some one had been waiting there and listening all the time; it was Michael Apafi, her long expected, often bewailed consort.
"Michael! my beloved husband!" cried the woman, trembling with emotion; and half swooning, half beside herself, she fell upon her husband's neck, murmuring unintelligible words of love, joy, and tenderness.
Apafi pressed her to his breast. She embraced him convulsively; no other sound was to be heard but a deep sobbing.
"Thou art mine!" she stammered, after a long pause, when the tempest of her emotion had somewhat subsided and she was more herself.
"I am thine," cried Apafi; "and I swear that nothing in the world shall ever tear me from thee again!"
"O God, what bliss!" cried Anna, raising her streaming eyes to heaven. "What joy thou hast brought back to me!" she stammered once more, leaning on her husband and hiding her face in his bosom.