"Then, as now, may God protect you."

The bunda was very heavy. Elsa dragged it over her knee, and sat down on a low stool in the open doorway. She had pulled the table a little closer, and on it were her scissors, needles and cotton, as well as the box of matches and the candle which she would be allowed to light presently when Pater BonifÁcius came.

The moth certainly had caused many ravages in the sheepskin cloak—there were tiny holes everywhere, and the fur when you touched it came out in handfuls. But as the fur would be turned inwards, that wouldn't matter so much. The bunda was quite wearable: there was just a bad tear in the leather close to the pocket, which might show and which must be mended.

Elsa threaded her needle, and began to hum her favourite song under her breath:

She was determined not to think any more of the past. In a few hours now that chapter in her life would be closed, and it was useless and wicked to be always thinking of the "might-have-been." Rather did she set herself resolutely to think of the future, of that part of it, at any rate, which was bright. There would be her mother installed in that comfortable house on the Kender Road, and with a nice bit of land and garden round in which to grow vegetables and keep some poultry. There would be her three cows and the pigs which BÉla was giving her, and which he would graze on his own land.

Above all, there would be the comfortable bed and armchair for the sick man, and the little maid to wait upon him.

There was so much, so much to be thankful for! And since God chose to take Andor away, what else was there to live for, save to see her mother and father contented?

The light was going fast. Elsa had made a splendid job of that one pocket. The other, too, wanted a stitch. It was very badly torn—if only the feeble light would hold out another ten minutes ... that hole, too, would be securely mended.

With the splendid disregard of youth for its most precious gift, Elsa strained her eyes to thread her needle once more.

She tackled the second pocket of the shabby bunda. There was a long tear at the side, as if the wearer's hand had missed the actual pocket and been thrust carelessly or roughly through the leather.

Elsa put her hand through the hole, too, to see the extent of the mischief. Yes! that was it, her father must more than once have missed the pocket and put his hand into the hole, making it bigger and bigger. Why! there was a whole lot of rubbish deep down inside the lining. Elsa drew out an empty tobacco-pouch, a bit of string, a length of tinder, and from the very bottom, where it lay in a crinkled mass, a ball of crumpled paper.

This she smoothed out, holding it over her knee. It was a letter—one which must have been delivered on the very day when her father last wore the bunda. The envelope had not been broken: old Kapus hadn't had time to read his letter, the last which he had received before living death encompassed him. The tears gathered in Elsa's eyes at thought of her father handling this very letter with shaking yet still living hands: now they were incapable even of gripping this tiny piece of paper.

But then—two years ago, her mother said it was, almost to a day when last he wore the bunda—then he had received the letter from the postman and evidently thrust it into his pocket, meaning to read it at some more convenient time.

The peasants of that part of the world have never quite lost their distrust of railways, of telegrams, and even of letters—they are half-afraid of them all, afraid with that vague, unreasoning fear which animals have for things they see yet cannot understand.

Elsa handled this unopened letter with something of that same fear. She did not think at first of looking at the superscription. Who could have been writing to her father two years ago? He had no rich friends who could afford to spend money on note-paper and stamps. There was no news in the great outer world which someone could have wished to impart to him. The light indeed was very dim before Elsa, sitting here with the old bunda on her knee, thought of looking more closely at the envelope.

She bent down and out toward the light, trying to decipher the writing.

The letter was addressed to her.

Oh! it was quite clear!

"Tekintetes Kapus Elsa kisasszonynak."

It was quite, quite clearly written. The letter was addressed to her. The postman had brought it here two years ago: her father had taken it from him and thrust it into the pocket of his bunda, meaning to give it presently to his daughter.

But that evening perhaps he forgot it altogether: he had been drinking rather heavily of late. And the next day he was stricken down with paralysis, his tongue refused him service, and he no longer could tell his daughter—as no doubt he wanted to do—that a letter had come for her and that it was in the pocket of his bunda.

And the bunda was thrust away into the dower-chest with the husks of maize and the cabbage-stalks, and it had never been taken out until to-night—the eve of Elsa's wedding-day.

She tore open the envelope now with fingers that trembled slightly. The light was very dim, and where the glorious sunset had been such a little while ago there was only the dull grey canopy of an overcast sky. But Elsa could just make out the writing: already her eye had wandered to the signature, "your ever-devoted Andor." The message seemed to come to her as from the grave, for she thought that these were probably Andor's last words to her, penned just before he died in that awful hospital in Bosnia.

The letter fell out of Elsa's hands on to her knee. She took no heed of it, she was staring out into the immensity far away, into the fast-gathering gloom. Two years ago! Two years of sorrow and vain regrets which never need have been. One word from her father or from the postman, the feel of crisp paper in her father's bunda when it was put away two years ago, and the whole course of her life would have been changed.

The village street behind her was silent now, even the footsteps of belated folk hurrying to their homes sent up no echo from the soft, sandy ground. And before her the fast-gathering night was slowly wrapping the plain in its peace-giving shroud. Inside the cottage all was still: mother and father lay either asleep or awake thinking of the morrow.

A great, heavy sob shook the young girl's vigorous young frame. It seemed too wantonly cruel, this decree of Fate which had withheld from her the light of her life. How easy it would have been to wait! How swiftly these two years would have flown past. Her heart would have kept young—waiting for Andor and for happiness, whereas now it was numb and unsentient, save for a feeling of obedience and of filial duty, of pity for her mother and father, and of resignation to her future state.

Indeed Fate was being wantonly cruel to her to the last in thus putting before her eyes a picture of the might-have-been just when it was too late. In a few hours from now the great vow would be spoken, the irrevocable knot tied which bound her to another man. Her troth was already plighted, her confession made to Pater BonifÁcius—in a few hours from now she would be BÉla's wife, and if Andor did come back now, she must be as nothing to him, he as a mere distant friend.But probably he never would come back. He received no reply to his fond letter of farewell, not one word from her to cheer him on his way. No doubt by now he had made a home for himself in that far distant land. Another woman—a stranger—revelled in the sunshine of his love, while Elsa, whose whole life had been wrapped up in him, was left desolate.

For a moment a wild spirit of revolt rose in her. Was it too late, after all? Was any moment in life too late to snatch at fleeing happiness? Why shouldn't she run away to-night—now?—find that unknown country, that unknown spot where Andor was? Surely God would give her strength! God could not be so unjust and so cruel as men and Fate had been!

Pater BonifÁcius, turning from the street round the angle of the cottage, found her in this mood, squatting on the low stool, her elbows on her knees, her face buried in her hands. He came up to her quite gently, for though his was a simple soul it was full of tenderness and of compassion for the children of these plains whom God had committed into his charge.

"Elsa, my girl," he asked softly, "what is it?"