They were dusky, for the twilight of the winter's day had come. He did not see a little figure which was coming towards him until the child had stopped him with a timid outstretched hand.
'Shall we never see her again?' said Bela, in a hushed voice. 'It is so long!—so long! Oh, please do tell me!'
Sabran paused, and looked down on the boy with blood-shot burning eyes. For a moment or so he did not answer; then, with a sudden movement, he drew his son to him, lifted him in his arms and kissed him passionately.
'You will see her, not I—not I!' he said with a sob like a woman's. 'Bela, listen! Be obedient to her, adore her, have no will but hers; be loyal, be truthful, be noble in all your words and all your thoughts, and then in time perhaps—perhaps—she will pardon you for being also mine!'
The child, terrified, clung to him with all his force, dimly conscious of some great agony near him, but far beyond his comprehension or consolation.
'I love you, I will always love you!' he said, with his hands clasped around his father's throat.
'Love your mother!' said Sabran, as he kissed the boy's soft cheeks, made wet by his own tears; then he released the little frightened form, and went himself away into the darkness.
In a little time, with no word to any living soul there, he had harnessed some horses with his own hands, and in the fast falling gloom of the night had driven from Hohenszalras.