It is time to return to Frau Fruzsinka, and to explain how she had come to be a prisoner under the same roof as her husband.

When Fruzsinka found that RÁby was, in spite of the efforts she had made to save him, a prisoner in Pesth, her rage and disgust knew no bounds. The abandoned woman still carried on her miserable masquerade in man's attire, and as a pretended highwayman, continued to strike terror into the hearts of the countryside.

One night, however, she was taken with what seemed a sudden faintness, and seeking shelter in a peasant's hut, was betrayed by the owner to the heydukes, and carried off by her captors to the prison in Pesth. By the time she arrived there, she was evidently seriously ill, and appeared to be in a high fever, although it never occurred to the prison authorities that her malady might be infectious.

Janosics, who had hailed her arrival with ill-concealed delight, perceiving his prisoner wore a richly embroidered kerchief round her neck, proceeded to annex it, and bind it round his own. But this rough undressing, to which she was subjected as a culprit, was too much for Fruzsinka, and she soon betrayed her sex by her tears at the rough treatment Janosics meted out to her.

As might be expected, the news soon spread that this was no highwayman, but a woman, and she too of noble family.

TÁrhalmy recognised her at once, and he tingled with shame at the thought of Mathias RÁby's wife being treated as a common felon. And the case of a woman of Fruzsinka's position being sent there was so rare that there was literally no provision for such prisoners in the building, and so it came to pass that the disused "archive-room," as it was called, the room where Mariska had been able to communicate with RÁby, was that now appointed for Fruzsinka.

"You will be rewarded for this," gasped the wretched woman. "I shall not trouble you long, for I shall not live over to-morrow."

And when TÁrhalmy, having found a maid to wait on her, was leaving the room, she called him back to whisper:

"I know you have a daughter you love dearly. Send her away immediately from this house, so she escape the contagion I have brought with me."

TÁrhalmy hastened to warn Mariska that she might go to the house of her aunt at Buda, and told her who the prisoner really was.

But the girl was terrified at the thought of leaving RÁby, perhaps to starve, nor did she shrink at the idea of nursing Fruzsinka, but begged her father to let her remain at home, and tend the sick woman.But TÁrhalmy would not let her carry her self-abnegation so far.

Meantime, the doctor came, and deceived by the patient's symptoms, which seemed to him those of an ordinary fever, made a false diagnosis of Fruzsinka's case, and failed to recognise her malady for what it really was—the oriental plague, which was then raging in the near East.

But the plague-stricken woman would not allow a soul to come near her, and refused all attempt at help or consolation, for she, being a Calvinist, would not even see the kindly Capuchin friar who came to offer his services.

And Mariska was allowed to remain till the news of Lievenkopp's threatening mission determined her father to send her away.

As for that officer's demand, it was, deemed TÁrhalmy, a question to be settled by the Pesth tribunal, and the still closed door of the prisoner's dungeon would be the answer to the Emperor's mandate, whilst the prisoner himself, when it came to the execution of justice, should know who was master in Pesth!

Surely TÁrhalmy had good reasons for sending his daughter away.

Thus was RÁby bereft of his guardian-angel, and so it came to pass that his evil genius, his wretched wife, lay dying in the room over his dungeon.

But Fruzsinka's prophecy came true; she died the next day, and was promptly buried. No one mourned the dead woman, as no one had excused her.