"You have signed Banfi's death-warrant."
"I!" cried Apafi feebly, trying to catch hold of his wife's hand.
"Away with that hand, monster! It is stained with my kinsman's blood."
"Then you don't consent to it?" stammered the abject creature. "Neither did I, but the magnates constrained me."
The Princess smote her hands together, and looked at her consort despairingly.
"You have brought blood on our family! You have brought a curse on the land and on me! Oh, why did I not let you perish in the hands of the Tartars? Where you are concerned virtue itself becomes a sin."
Apafi was crushed. Alone with his wife, he was something less than a man.
"I did not wish to kill him," he blurted out, "nor do I now; and if you wish it, I'll reprieve him. Here, take my signet-ring. Send a horseman after Csaky to Bethlen Castle. Reprieve your cousin and leave me in peace."
"What ho, there! Who is without?" shrieked the Princess.
The domestic servants came pouring in, headed by the pantler.