Who knows whether it might not after all have been as well for Vamhidy to avoid any meeting whatever with--the widow of the late Baron Hatszegi?
Yet it was she who was, in any case, the most wretched of them all.
Although only six and twenty she could already be called an old woman.
She was the victim of her shattered nerves night and day.

The least noise made her tremble.

The opening of a door was sufficient to make her start up.

When she was only four and twenty she had already given up plucking out her grey hairs, there were so many of them.

She found no relaxation in the society of her fellows and therefore avoided all social gatherings.