"Then you really mean to escort my wife to Pest?" said Hatszegi, at
last.
"With the greatest of pleasure."
"Very well. At any rate, I will see to all the travelling arrangements
that there may be no delay at any of the stages. Which way do you prefer
to go _via_ Csongrad or _via_ Szeged?
"By way of Csongrad."
"Well, 'tis the shorter of the two certainly, but at this season of the
year the road is as hard as steel. It will be as well to provide my
horses with fresh shoes."
"It is now ten o'clock. By midnight your coachman will have managed to
do all that. The baroness would do well if she had a little sleep now.
Meanwhile I will go home for my luggage and my weapons; at two o'clock
in the morning I shall be here again, and at three we can start."
"I will be awake and watching for you, and I thank you with all my
heart."
Mr. Gerzson drank up his tea and hastened home. Leonard advised
Henrietta to go and sleep--and she really was very sleepy--while he went
to the stables to see to the horses.
It was about midnight when he returned. He looked very tired, like one
who has had a great deal of bustling about. He was alone in the drawing
room, so he stirred up the fire, lit a cigar and waited in silence.
At half past two Mr. Gerzson rang the gate-bell; he entered the
drawing-room very boisterously like one resolved to wake up the whole
house.
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