"Now you shall see."
Gyergyai looked Beldi in the eye.
"My friend, I do not know what this letter contains but from your expression I infer your thought. I have heard my father say that a man should not send off the same day a letter written under excitement, but should lay it under his pillow and sleep on it. The advice is not bad. Do not send your letter off before morning; in fact I will not send it to-night."
Beldi complied with the old man's advice. He put the letter under his pillow, lay down, fell asleep and dreamed. In his dream he was happy with his wife and children. The noise of a wagon passing by in the morning awakened him. The first thing that his hand touched was his letter to Banfy. He broke it open, read it through again, and—was very much ashamed that he had written anything of the kind.
"Where was your understanding, Beldi?" he asked himself with a smile, tore the letter in two and threw it into the fire. "How they would have laughed at you!" he thought. "They would have said you were an old fool to whom it had occurred late in life to be jealous of the mother of his children on account of a kiss given by a man in his cups and received against the lady's will." What a weapon he would have given Banfy if he had announced that he was not sure of his wife on Banfy's account. "We will go straight to Bodola," he said gently to his servant when he entered, and then he took leave of his host.
"And what about the letter you were going to send?" asked Gyergyai with concern.
"I have already conveyed it—to the flames!" replied Beldi, smiling, and went on his way with his feelings quite changed. As he approached Bodola he noticed from a distance the members of his family who had been watching for him from the castle balcony; as soon as they recognized his carriage they hurried down to meet him. When he reached the foot of the castle hill there they all were,—his wife and children; they threw themselves on his neck with cries of joy and he kissed each one several times over, but especially his dear devoted wife on whom he feasted his eyes. It seemed to him that her eyes were brighter, her face more charming, her lips sweeter than ever. "What fools men are!" thought Beldi. "When they do not see their wives they are ready to believe everything bad of them, and when they do see them they forget it all."
He was so abandoned to his joy that he did not observe that there was a stranger in the family circle, but the stranger made haste to attract his attention. He was Feriz Bey, a handsome, well-built young Turk, with frank, noble features resembling a Hungarian's.
"You do not notice me, or perhaps you do not remember me," said the youth, stepping up to Beldi.
Beldi glanced at him and thought he recognized him, but did not venture to call him by name until his younger daughter Aranka hanging on her father's arm said with a childlike laugh: