CHAPTER VIII.
A WOMAN'S REVENGE.
"Aranka, my dear girl, if you are looking for your father, you will look in vain; he won't come back. My husband has just received a letter from Pest. He says your dear father's affair is going badly. The consistory forbids his appearing in the pulpit, and he has been summoned to Vienna. He will be sentenced to ten years, at least, and sent to Kufstein. Yes, my dear, there's no help for it. But you mustn't weep so. There is a good Father in heaven, and he will care for the forsaken. God be with you, my dear!"
With this cheerful morning greeting the wife of Michael Szalmás, the notary, saluted the pastor's daughter, as the latter came to the door of the little parsonage for the hundredth time and looked up the street along which she had seen her father drive away two weeks before.
The young girl went back into the house, sat down at her work-table, and resumed her sewing. She had hardly done so, however, when a carriage drove up and stopped in front of the parsonage. She sprang to her feet and hastened joyfully to the door. Was it really her father come back to her? Upon opening the door she started back in surprise. Not her father, but the widowed Baroness Baradlay, dressed in deep mourning, which accentuated her pallor, stood before Aranka.
The girl bowed and kissed with deep respect the offered hand of the high-born lady.
"Good morning, my child," said the visitor. "I have come to have a talk with you on certain matters that must be settled between us."
Aranka offered the lady a seat on the sofa. The widow motioned to the girl to be seated opposite her.
"First," she began, "I must inform you, to my great regret, that your father has got into trouble on account of his prayer at my husband's funeral. I am sorry, but it can't be helped. He will probably lose his pastorate, and that is not the worst of it."
"Then the rumours that we hear are true," sighed the girl.
"Even his personal liberty is in danger," continued the lady. "He may be imprisoned, and if so, you will not see him for a long time."