"Madam," said he, as he bade her farewell, "this is the last time I shall have the happiness to be the guest of the Baradlay family. I should not have believed the greatest prophet, had he foretold to me this morning what was about to occur. And yet I myself am not without the spirit of prophecy. You, madam, and your son have deviated from the course laid down for you in his dying hour by that great man, your husband and my sincere friend. That course he communicated to me before broaching the matter to you. You have chosen the very opposite path to that which he opened for you, and I beg you to remember in future what I now say: the way you have chosen leads upward, but the height to which it leads is--the scaffold!" CHAPTER XI. THE FIRST STEP. Three days after the betrothal a county assembly was held under the presidency of Administrator Rideghváry. At an early hour the white feathers and the black--the badges of the Progressive and the Conservative parties respectively--began to appear. But not only were white and black feathers conspicuous; loaded canes, also, and stout cudgels were seen peeping out from overhanging mantles, to be brought forth in case some convincing and irrefutable argument should be needed in the heat of debate. Punctually at nine o'clock Rideghváry called the meeting to order. The Progressives had planned an energetic protest against an alleged unconstitutionality in the administration, and their best speakers were primed for the occasion, hoping to bring the matter to a vote. The Conservatives, on their part, had summoned to their aid all the most tiresome and long-winded speakers to be found in the neighbouring counties, to kill the motion. Nevertheless, the white feathers held their ground, being determined to sit the meeting out if it lasted all night, and well knowing that, the moment the chairman should note any preponderance of blacks in the hall, he would put the question to vote and it would be lost. Therefore they kept their places patiently until it came the turn of their chief orator, Tormándy, to speak.