"I said I was selfish, Christabel, didn't I? I had quite forgotten I had told you nothing. I will tell you: but you must first give me a promise not to repeat it. Our marriage is only a secret so far, you know."

"On my honour, I will do nothing to harm you. Why is your marriage a secret?"

"My husband is afraid of his father's anger. You see, Karl--"

"Karl?" I exclaimed, involuntarily.

"That is my husband's name," she replied, with a touch of rebuke and pride. He had taken his brother's Christian name, it seemed.

"Of course," I agreed.

"My husband is a Count, but as yet only a poor one, dependent upon the good will of his father who wishes him to marry some one else. So we dare not let it be known yet that we are married."

"But your own friends know?" I said.

She seemed to resent this in some way as a reflection upon her husband. "I have no friends in Pesth except my dear father. He is alive and I know he loves me; but I don't know why, I have never lived at home for more than a week or so at a time. I did wish to tell him; but Karl would not let me--I mean, we decided it was better not until the truth could be told to all." Then she showed me her innocent heart again. "It is when I think of my father that I am so wretched. He will believe I have deserted him so cruelly;" and her eyes were full of tears again.

"Who is your father, dear?"

"Colonel Katona. My dear, dear father!" and her grief so overcame her that my fresh start of surprise passed unnoticed. He had been that friend of my father's who was believed to hold the secret of the great wrong in his keeping. And it was his daughter whom I had thus saved.

Her tears passed soon, like a summer storm. She was a creature of strangely variable moods.

"I know, of course, that Karl was right. My father is a stern, gloomy and sometimes hard man. He would have forced us to announce the marriage; and then Karl would have been ruined."

"But did not your father know that he wished to marry you?"

"Oh, no," she cried, smiling now. "That was the lovely part of it. He never saw Karl. I meant it to be a surprise. I was at Tyrnau, staying with friends, when 

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