ling of the trodden leaves, and then they heard nothing more.
"We must be close to it," said Vincenz to Baron Tolnay, when they had plunged into the thicket of bushes. "Did they not call out something about a signal after us?"
István nodded without turning his head; but in the next second he came to a dead stand-still, and faced straight round. He was muttering something under his breath. Vincenz did not hear what the words were; and if he had heard them, he would not have known what to make of them. What István said to himself were only the few words – "I cannot do it."
"I am not going farther," he said, louder; but his voice was so husky that Vincenz could scarcely catch even this.
They were standing in a patch of clear moonlight; and Vincenz, peering through his spectacles, thought he had never seen a man's face look as pale as István's face looked at this moment.
"Are you ill?" he asked, with sudden alarm, forgetting every thought of rivalry and petty differences in an honest fellow-feeling of sympathy. He put out his hand towards Tolnay's; but István started aside violently, as if he could not bear that touch.
"Yes – no; I don't know – perhaps I am ill, or perhaps I am mad. I am not going farther. You can find it for yourself; we are not twenty paces off."
"Do not trouble yourself," said Vincenz, with his usual courtesy. "I shall certainly find it for myself, if you will only tell me about that signal."
"It is a white handkerchief on the branch," replied Tolnay, slowly; and he broke off then, and fastened upon the lawyer's face a look so intense, so strained and fixed, that Vincenz stood wondering for a moment as to what that glance could mean.
There had been more than one moment to-day when Vincenz had met this man's eyes, and had puzzled over their expression. The hatred he had fancied to see in them might be explained; but there had been another element in those glances, for which he had not known how to account: that other element had looked like jealousy. What ground, in heaven's name – what ground for jealousy could the young, the rich, the fascinating Baron Tolnay have with regard to an obscure lawyer, without fortune, short-sighted, and on the verge of forty?
Vincenz had asked himself that question earlier in the day; he did not think of it at this moment. All he saw was, that Tolnay was looking strangely ill and disturbed.
"A white handkerchief on a branch," said Vincenz, recalling the other to the point in question. All István's energies seemed to have become absorbed in the intensity of that gaze.
"A white handkerchief on the branch, – yes," said Tolnay.
"And when I come to it, I must turn which way?"
Tolnay looked for one moment into the face of the man before him, and he saw that he was unsuspicious and open, ready to take him at his word. He set his teeth.
"When you come to it, you must turn," – he paused – that pause was scarcely a second, – "you must turn sharp to the left."
"To the left; thank you," said Vincenz, courteously.
Tolnay made no response. He stood watching the other till he passed out of sight, – his own figure standing so motionless that he seemed scarcely to be drawing
