Manasseh | Page 4

he
hastened to capitulate with a good grace. "In that case, madam," he
admitted, "the husband is bound to show his wife nothing but the purest
devotion and affection. The Roman lictors were, by the consul's orders,
required to lower their fasces before a Roman matron; she was
undisputed mistress in her sphere. The man who refuses to render the
humblest of homage to the mother of his children deserves to have a
millstone hung about his neck and to be cast into the sea."
The blond lady seemed softened by this unconditional surrender. "Are
you on your way to Rome, may I ask?" she presently inquired, her
question being apparently suggested by the other's reference to ancient
Roman customs.
"Yes, that is my destination," he replied.
"You go to witness the splendid ceremonies of Holy Week, I infer."
"No; they do not interest me."
"What!" exclaimed the lady; "the sublimest of our Church observances,
that which symbolises the very divinity of our Saviour, does not
interest you?"

"No; because I do not believe in his divinity," was the calm reply.
The lady raised her eyebrows in involuntary token of surprise at this
most unexpected answer. She suddenly felt a strong desire to fathom
the mysterious stranger. "I believe the Vatican is seeking an unusually
large loan just now," she remarked, half-interrogatively.
The stranger could not suppress a smile. He read the other's surmise
that he might be of Hebrew birth and faith. "It is not the papal loan,
madam," he returned, "that takes me to Rome; it is a divorce case."
"A divorce case?" The blond lady could not disguise her interest at
these words, while even the statuesque beauty at the other end of the
compartment turned her face fully upon the speaker, and her lips parted
slightly, like the petals of an opening rosebud.
"Yes," resumed the young man, "a separation from one who has denied
and rejected me for the sake of another; one whom I must for ever shun
in the future, and yet cannot cease to love; one whose loss can never be
made good to me. I am going to Rome because it is a dead city and
belongs equally to all and to none."
The train halted at a station, and the young man alighted. After a few
words to the guard he disappeared from sight.
"Do you know that gentleman?" asked the blond lady of her escort.
"Very well," was the reply.
"And yet you two hardly exchanged a word."
"Because we were neither of us so disposed."
"Are you enemies?"
"Not enemies, and yet in a certain sense opponents."
"Is he a Jew or an atheist?"

"Neither; he is a Unitarian."
"And what is a Unitarian, pray tell me?"
"The Unitarians form one of the recognised religious sects of
Hungary," explained the man. "They are Christians who believe in the
unity of God."
"It is strange I never heard of them before," said the lady.
"They live chiefly in Transylvania," added the other; "but the great
body of them, taken the world over, are found in England and America,
where they possess considerable influence. Their numbers are not large,
but they hold together well; and, though they are not increasing rapidly,
they are not losing ground."
The younger lady lowered her veil again and crossed herself beneath its
folds; but her companion turned and looked out of the window with a
curious desire to scrutinise the wicked heretic more closely. Both the
ladies, as the reader will have conjectured, were strictly orthodox in
their faith.
The train soon started again, after the customary ringing and whistling
and the guards' repeated warning of "partenza!" But the young heretic
seemed to put as little faith in bells and whistles and verbal warnings as
in the dogma of the Trinity; for he failed to appear as the train moved
away from the station. The ladies who owed so much to his kindness
could not deny a certain feeling of relief at being freed from the
company of one who cherished such heterodox religious convictions.
"You say you are well acquainted with the young man?" the blond lady
resumed.
"Yes, I know him well enough," was the answer. "His name is
Manasseh Adorjan, he is of good old Szekler descent, and he has seven
brothers and a twin sister. They all live at home in their ancestral castle.
Some of the brothers have married, but all live together peacefully
under one roof and form one household. Manasseh seems to have been

recognised by the family as the gifted one,--his brothers are nothing
more than honest and intelligent Szeklers,--and for his education and
advancement in the world all worked in unison. When he was only
twenty years old this young genius became a candidate for the council.
In