"Who gave it to you?" asked the mother.
"An old friend of the family, the same who procured me my appointment."
"And do you think I will accept any favour from him?" Therewith the baroness tore up the passport and threw the fragments on the floor, among those of the destroyed certificate.
"Oh, what have you done?" exclaimed Jenő in alarm. "How will you make your escape? Every outlet is barred."
The other merely raised her head in scorn and triumph. "As if I could not put all their precautions to shame!" she exclaimed. "Get your cloak, my son; I will take you by such a way that no man will venture to follow us."
The next day Rideghváry waited in vain for the young secretary, in order to escort him to the place where he was to take the oath of office. In vain, too, did the bride and her mother, and all the invited guests, wait for the bridegroom to join them. He failed to appear. Surely that dreaded mother of his must have seduced him!
Whither he had vanished, and how he had made his way through the lines, remained an unsolved riddle. It never occurred to any one that in times like those the Danube offered an excellent road for such as dared trust their lives to a frail boat, in the mist and darkness of the night, with two stout-hearted fishermen at the oars.