"Do you wish to stay in this room and shall I go into the other?" Her frosty tone touched Banfy. He sighed deeply and his eyes looked sorrowfully at the Paradise closed against him by his wife's joyless countenance. Sadly he rose from the chair, drew his wife's hand to his lips, whispered a barely audible "Good-night" and with unsteady steps entered the next room and closed the door.
Madame Banfy made ready to undress, but sorrow filled her heart and she threw herself on the bed, buried her face in her hands and remained lost in grief.
Can there be a greater pain than when the heart struggles with its own feelings, than when a wife attains to the conviction that the ideal of her love whom she adored next to God, is only an ordinary man, and that the man whom she had loved so devotedly is deserving only of her contempt? yet she is not able to stop loving him. She feels that she must hate him and separate herself from him; she knows that she cannot live without him; she would gladly die for him and yet no opportunity for death offers. Only an unlocked door separated them,—they were only a few steps apart. How small the distance and yet how great!
She sank into a deep revery. The fire had entirely burned down and the room was growing darker and darker. Only the woman's figure with her head buried in her hands was still lighted by the glowing coals. Suddenly it seemed to her in the stillness of the night and of her thoughts, as if she heard whispers and stealthy steps at the door. Madame Banfy really did hear this but she was in that first sleep when we hear without noticing what we hear; when we know what passes without heed. There was a whispering outside the window too, and it seemed to her that she heard besides a slight noise of swords. Half asleep, half awake, she thought she had risen and bolted the door but this was only a dream; the door was not fastened. Then there was the noise of the latch—she dreamed that her husband came out to her and entreated her.
"Let us separate, Banfy," she tried to say, but the words died on her lips. The figure in the dream whispered to her, "I am not Banfy, but the headsman," and took her by the hand. At this cold touch Madame Banfy cried out in terror and awoke. Two men stood before her with daggers drawn. The lady looked at them with a shudder; both were well-known figures; one was Caspar Kornis, Captain at Maros, and the other was John Daczo, Captain at Csik, who stood there threatening her with the points of their bared daggers at her breast.
"No noise, my gracious lady!" said Daczo, sternly. "Where is Banfy?"
The lady, wakened from her first sleep, could scarcely distinguish the objects about her. Terror robbed her of speech. Suddenly she noticed through the door that the passage-way was filled with armed men and with that sight her presence of mind seemed to return at once. She took in the significance of the moment and when Daczo, gnashing his teeth once more asked where Banfy was she sprang up, ran to the door opening to her husband's room, turned the key quickly and shouted with all her might:
"Banfy, save yourself! They want your life!"
Daczo ran forward to stop the woman's mouth and wrest the key from her. With rare presence of mind Madame Banfy threw the key into the coals and cried:
"Flee, Banfy, your enemies are here!"