On arriving at Vienna she found the family carriage awaiting her, and she lost no time in reaching her home. Hastening from room to room in quest of Edith, she found her sewing on a black dress for herself. "I have fulfilled my vow," cried Alfonsine, smiling with gratified malice. "He is dead!" Edith raised her eyes sadly and met her cousin's gaze. Then she bowed her head on her breast, but she did not weep or cry out. Hearing her daughter enter, Baroness Plankenhorst hastened to join her and hear all about the success of her mission. Nor did the other omit any detail in recounting her experiences of the night and the early morning. She dwelt with pride on the instant and entire success that had crowned her efforts. Thereupon the mother and daughter embraced and kissed each other in their joy, nearly forgetting in their congratulations the presence of a third person. But was the victim determined not to wince? "Haven't you a single tear to shed for him?" they asked, scornfully. But perhaps she had not yet grasped the meaning of it all. "Don't you hear me?" screamed her cousin; "your Richard Baradlay is dead." The other only sighed. "God has taken him," said she to herself, "and I shall mourn him as long as I live." But she could not trust herself to say anything aloud. Her anguish was too keen. "Weep for him, I tell you!" cried the beautiful fury, stamping her foot, while loose locks of her fair hair fluttered about her face. At that moment the servant opened the door and announced, "Captain Richard Baradlay." There he stood, but no longer in the uniform of a captain of hussars. He wore plain citizen's clothes. The tormented victim of the headache had employed the last hours of his tenure of office in causing one hundred and twenty of the chief prisoners under his care to be tried and sentenced with the utmost expedition. They were condemned to death, but he exercised his right of pardon, and set them all free, without exception. He thus, as he had vowed in his hour of torment, took ample revenge--not on the accused, but on the minister who was about to remove him from office. He issued a wholesale pardon. "Now let the minister, in his zeal for milder methods, outdo me if he can!" he exclaimed, as he threw down his pen. Richard had been summoned before the judge-advocate immediately after receiving the unexpected announcement of his pardon. "You are set free, it is true," said the high official; "yet for a time you are not allowed to live in Hungary, but are ordered to make your home in some city of the empire outside your own country. Let us say Vienna, for example. The governor, who has to-day given you your liberty, wishes you to call on the young Baroness Alfonsine Plankenhorst, upon your arrival at Vienna, and thank her for her good offices in securing your liberation. Without her intervention you would not so soon have left your prison cell. So give her your heartiest thanks." "I shall not fail to do so," was the reply.