When early next morning the carriage stood in the courtyard of Hidvár. Henrietta awoke in her husband's arms: there she had been sleeping for a long time. When she looked round and encountered Hátszegi's bright manly glances it almost seemed to her as if the dreadful scene of the night before was a mere dream, from which it was a joy to awake. When her husband kissed her hand before departing for his own room, Henrietta pressed his hand in return and gave him a grateful smile.
But what then was the key to this horrible mystery? Who could have hit upon the idea of sending this jewelry? There was not a gleam of light to go by. An enigma closed the way to every elucidation, and this enigma was—Fatia Negra. How did the jewelry get out of his hands into Henrietta's? What was the motive for such a transfer? And who was the man himself? This thought gave Henrietta no rest.
Why could they not seize this famous robber? First of all, she kept on asking her husband about it, and he replied that the whole story about Fatia Negra was only a Wallachian fable. It was true that robberies were committed by men who regularly wore black masks, but it was never one and the same man who was guilty of these misdeeds. Nevertheless the name had won a sort of nimbus of notoriety among the common people, many had made use of it as well as of the mask attaching to it, and though it was an undeniable fact that Fatia Negra had been caught and hanged more than once, yet he still continued to live and go about. The popular mythology had immortalized him.
The parson, however, had quite a different opinion of the matter; he seemed to be more particularly informed. Although he opined Fatia Negra wandered through every corner of the kingdom, his abiding nest was in this district; he had a sweetheart here to whom he appeared periodically.
"Why don't they seize him then?" asked Henrietta.
"Because a part of the common folks holds with him, and the other part thinks he is in league with the devil."
"I would set a high price on his head and give it to whomsoever caught him."
"Oh, my lady, the various counties have done that scores of times, and now and then a young fellow braver than the rest has tried to catch him; but they have all of them ended by losing their own heads instead of getting his."
"Never mind, I will not be satisfied till that man is in my power. Ah, the robber-chieftain little imagines what an enemy he has raised up against him in me, when he put this terrible riddle into my heart. And it is a riddle I mean to solve, too."
The priest shook his head as if he would have said: "Strong men have given up the task, what can a weak woman do?"