Maria and Imré accompanied the carriage on foot all the way to town. Yet, once again, they were forced to fight their way through armed bands of rebels, but after that they reached the town peaceably enough. The General had given orders that Hétfalusy should be conducted straight to his house as soon as the old man arrived. Boundless was the joy of the worthy General to welcome in his home as a guest the man who, once upon a time, had been his mortal foe. Now indeed they could pardon each other everything. Hétfalusy knew, at last, why the General had abandoned his girl so suddenly, and how could the iron man help forgiving him who had sinned greatly against him it is true, but, at the same time, had suffered so terribly for it. It was only mental excitement which still kept the life in the old man's shattered body. He survived for another six months. His bodily wounds healed but slowly, and still more slowly the wounds of the spirit. He saw his only son happy in the love of the noblest, the rarest of women; he saw his little grandchild growing up full of beauty, wisdom, and amiability; and it did him good to rejoice in the domestic happiness of his former enemy, and oftentimes he would call Cornelia his darling daughter. And she was worthy of the name. A beneficent stroke of apoplexy called him home to his dead in the family vault at Hétfalu. Imré remained no longer in those parts. He settled down on his wife's property with little Elise, and left for ever the place which had such melancholy associations for him. And Peter Zudár went with them. He pursued no more his grim profession. After that last master-stroke of his, he never grasped the headsman's sword again. He had wielded it for the last time at God's command, he was not going to play the part of death's scytheman any more at the bidding of man. Close to the Kamienszki estates he rented a little plot of land where he grew flowers and melons, sported with white doves and little rabbits, and sang in the church choir every day. It never occurred to anyone that he had once been----but no matter. And the three houses at Hétfalu were abandoned to desolation. The gutted dwelling-house was never re-built. The castle was never re-inhabited, people avoided it as a spectre-stricken dwelling. Its windows were bricked up, its garden became a wilderness of weeds, its steps and staircases fell to pieces. Ruin wrought her work upon it. The hut, with the moss-covered roof, endured the longest. The old night-owl, who now could scarce use her limbs, would, nevertheless, totter of an evening to the place where stood the vast family vault of the Hétfalusies, sit down there, opposite to the iron gate, and talk all sorts of nonsense to some imaginary interlocutor.