Mariska shook her head with a puzzled air, yet she would find out still more now that the ice was broken. "And the men who prosecute him--are they just also?" Tárhalmy did not shirk the answer: "No, they are unjust men," he said shortly. Mariska grew bolder still, "How is it that a man who is really good can be ruined by those who are evil?" "Because it is the way of the world, my child," returned her father. "Are you vexed with Mathias Ráby?" she inquired in a low voice. "No, I love him as if he were my own son," was the answer. "And yet you cannot defend him against those who intend him ill?" "I cannot." "And why not?" "Because I myself am on their side." The girl gazed at him in astonishment. "My father taking the part of the unjust against the just, how can that be?" "It is a big question which cannot be judged by ordinary standards. Besides, how should a child like you understand?" Yet Tárhalmy marvelled at the girl's questions; they reached their mark. But he felt he owed her an explanation. "I will try and make it clear," he said. "Our Emperor is a very well-meaning man who has the welfare of this country at heart. He honestly wants to benefit the people he rules over. But one thing he does not understand, and that is the love of the Magyar for his native land and his Hungarian institutions. If our mother is sick, do we cease to love her? And so it is with Hungary, we, her children, know her weakness and her wants, but we do not cease to love her the less. The Emperor does not understand us; he wishes to civilise us before we are ready for it, to mould us to his own ideals of a nation. He does not want, as other rulers have done, to crush us, but he would have us develop by new and unfamiliar methods. Against force we could oppose force, yet he does not attempt to coerce us, but seeks only to impose on us the weight of his authority. Thus it is that he sends orders which no one obeys, and there are none of his officials who dare carry them out. The whole body of Hungarian opinion in this land is dead against his reforms, and will continue to oppose them tooth and nail." Now all this did not trouble Mariska; she understood so little of it. Moreover, what her father said must be true. Yet she could not see what the Emperor's dealings with Hungary had to do with Ráby's imprisonment.