"There is not much more,—you could almost say there was very little more," answered Andy, with downcast eyes, in his embarrassment fumbling with his hat.
"How much? how much more?" They all cried at once. Andy turned red. "There isn't any more!" he blurted out, and burst into a loud laugh followed by tears;—at once the lady caught the meaning of his words.
"Man," she cried passionately, seizing him by the shoulders, "you have brought my husband with you!" Andy pointed behind him and nodded in silence. He wept and laughed all at once but not a word could he speak.
With a cry such as one utters only in deepest joy, the lady ran to the half open door and there stood listening, Michael Apafi, long waited and oft lamented.
"Michael, my own dear husband!" cried his wife, trembling with feeling; and, beside herself, she fell on her husband's neck, whispering to him words too low to be heard, expressions of tenderness, joy and love. Apafi pressed his wife to his heart; no sound was to be heard save low sobbing.
"You are mine, mine at last," stammered his wife, after a long pause, recovering from the violence of her feelings.
"I am yours. And I swear to you that no country, no world can tear me from you again."
"Oh, my God, what happiness!" cried Anna, raising to heaven her face covered with tears of joy. "What joy you have brought back to me," again leaning on her husband and burying her face on his breast.
"If the whole world were mine I should not be rich enough to repay you for your loyalty to me. If I could call a kingdom my own I would give it to you, and that would be only a beggarly reward."
The husband and wife, exultant in their joy and love, remained undisturbed in their happiness. Until late in the night the light burned in their room,—how much, how much they had to say!