That one word was enough to sink the secret to the bottom of the sea. Henceforward he could go backward and forward by day or night, no one would ever mention his name. They all knew now that he was an agent of the Servian and Montenegrin heroes of the insurrection, and the rack would not have extorted information from them. He became a sacred personage in their eyes. In this way, in order to hide himself in darkness, he deceived every one with whom he exchanged a word. The fishermen ferried over the cases at night, and Timar with them; they looked out for a place on the shore where the thickest bushes grew, and carried the boxes there, and when Michael would have paid them, they would not accept a groschen from him, only grasping his hand.

He remained on the island, and the fishermen left him. It was a splendid moonlight night; the nightingale sung on its nest. Michael went along the bank till he came to the path, and passed the place where he had left off his work last year; the trunks were carefully covered with rushes to keep the wet off.

He approached the little dwelling on tiptoe. It was a good sign that he heard no noise. Almira does not bark, because she is sleeping in the kitchen so as not to wake the child. All is well in the house.

How should he announce himself, and surprise Noemi? He stood before the little window, half covered by climbing roses, and began to sing—

"For all the gold the world could hold, I would not give my Dodi's curl."

He was not disappointed; a moment later the window opened, and Noemi looked out with a face radiant with joy. "My Michael," whispered the poor child.

"Yes, thy Michael," he murmured, clasping the dear head in both arms. "And Dodi?"

"He is asleep; hush, we must not wake him." And still the lips murmured tenderly, "Come in."

"He might wake and cry."

"Oh, he is no longer a crying child. Just think, he is a year old."

"What! a year already! He is quite a big fellow."

"He can say your name already."

"Does he really talk?"

"And he is learning to walk."

"Just fancy!"

"He eats anything now."

"Impossible; that is too soon."

"What do you know about it? wait till you see him."

"Push the curtain aside that I may see him by the moonlight."

"No; that would not do. If the moon shines on a sleeping child it makes it ill."

"Nonsense!"

"There are all sorts of wonderful things about children, and one must have plenty of faith; that is why women have charge of children, because they believe everything. Come in and look at him."

"I will not go in as long as he is asleep—I might wake him; you come out."

"I can not do that; he would wake if I left him, and mother is asleep."

"Well, then, you go back to him, and I will remain outside."

"Won't you lie down?"

"It is almost day-break. Go back to him, and leave the window open."

And he remained standing by the window, looking into the little room, on whose floor the moon painted silver patterns, and trying to distinguish the tones which came from the quiet chamber—a little whimper of an awakened child, then a low song like a dreamy lullaby, "For all the gold . . ." Then the sound of a kiss, which a good baby gets as a reward for going to sleep. With his elbows on the window-sill, and listening to the breaths of the sleepers, Timar awaited the dawn, which filled the little house with light. The red sunrise awoke the child, and there was no more sleep for the others. The baby crowed and babbled; what it said only those two understood—itself and Noemi.

When at last Michael got it into his arms he said, "I shall stay here, Dodi, till I have finished your house."

The child said something which Noemi interpreted to mean, "That is just what I wish."

These were the happiest days of Timar's dual life. Nothing troubled the serenity of his happiness, except the thought of that other life to which he must return. If he could find ways and means to sever himself from that, he might live on here in peace. Nothing would be easier; he simply had to stay here. He would be sought for during the first year, for two or three more he would be remembered from time to time; then the world would forget him and he it, and Noemi would remain to him. And what a jewel she was! Whatever was lovable in woman was combined in her, and every feminine defect was wanting. Her beauty was not of the kind which satiates by its monotony: with every change of expression arose a new charm. Tenderness, gentleness, and fire were united in her disposition. The virgin, the fairy, the woman were harmoniously blended in her. Her love was never selfish; her whole being went out to him whom she loved: his sorrows and joys were hers, she knew no others. At home she thought of every trivial detail which could conduce to his comfort; she helped him in his work with an untiring hand. Ever bright and fresh, if she felt unwell a kiss from him drove away the pain. She was submissive to him, who worshiped her. And when she took the child on her lap, it was a sight to drive the man mad who had made her his own—and yet not really his.

But Timar had not yet made up his mind. He still played with Fate. The price was too high even for such a treasure as a lovely woman with a smiling child in her arms.

The cost was—a whole world! a property amounting to millions; his position in society; his rank and noble friends; the enterprise of world-wide influence, on whose result hung the future of a great national branch of trade! and besides—Timea. He might have reconciled himself to the idea of treading his riches under foot: they came from the submarine depths, and might return thither.

But his vanity refused to contemplate the notion that that woman with the white face, which no glow from her husband could animate, might be happy in this life—with another man. Perhaps he hardly knew himself what a fiend was hidden in his breast. The woman who could not love him was fading away before his eyes, while he could live through happy days where he was well beloved. And during this time the house-building made rapid progress, and was already being put together by the workman's skillful hand; the roof was on, and covered with wide planks formed like fish-scales to overlap each other. The carpentry was done, and now came the cabinet-work. Michael completed it without any assistance, and might be seen from morn to eve in the workshop he had arranged in the new house, where he sung all day as he planed and sawed. Like the steadiest of day-laborers, he never left off his work before dark; then he returned to the hut where an appetizing supper awaited him. After the meal he sat down on the bench outside the house, and lighted his clay pipe. Noemi sat by him and took Dodi on her knees, who was now expected to exhibit what he had learned during the day. A new word! And is not this one word a greater acquirement than all the wisdom of the world? "What would you sell Dodi for?" Noemi asked him once in jest. "For the whole earth full of diamonds?"

"Not for the whole heaven full of angels."

Little Dodi happened that day to be full of spirits. In a mischievous mood he caught hold with his little hand of the pipe Michael had in his mouth, and pulled till he got it out of his hold, when he at once threw it on the ground; as it was made of clay, of course it was broken into atoms. Timar was rather hasty in his exercise of justice, and bestowed a little tap on the child's hand as a punishment for the damage done. The boy looked at him, then hid his head in his mother's breast, and began to cry.

"See now," said Noemi, sadly, "you would give him away for a pipe, and this one was only of clay."

Michael was very sorry to have slapped Dodi's hand. He tried to make it up by coaxing words, and kissed the little hand, but the child was shy of him, and crept under Noemi's shawl. All night he was restless, wakeful, and crying. Timar got angry, and said the child was of a willful nature, his obstinacy must be overcome. Noemi cast a gently reproachful glance on him.

The next day Timar left his bed earlier than usual, and went to his work, but he was never heard to sing all day. He left off early in the afternoon, and when he came home he could see by Noemi's face that she was quite alarmed at his appearance. His complexion was quite altered. "I am not well," he said to Noemi, "my head is so heavy, my feet will hardly carry me, and I have pain in all my limbs. I must lie down."

Noemi hastened to make up a bed for him in the inner room, and helped him to undress. With anxiety she noticed that Michael's hands were cold and his breath burning. Frau Therese felt his forehead, and advised him to cover himself well, for he was going to have ague. But Michael had the sensation that something worse was at hand. In this district typhus was raging, for the spring floods had swelled the Danube in an unusual degree, and left malaria behind them. When he laid his head on the pillow he was still sensible enough to think of what would happen if a serious illness attacked him; no doctor was near to help. He might die here, and no one would know what had become of him. What would become of Timea, and above all, of Noemi? Who would care for the forsaken one, a widow without being a wife? Who would bring up Dodi, and what fate awaited him when he should be grown up, and Michael underground? Two women's lives would be wrecked by his death!

And then he began to think of the revelations of his delirium before the two women who would be with him day and night—of his stewards, his palaces, and of his pale wife—of how he would see Timea before him, call her by name, and speak of her as his wife—and Noemi knows that name.

Besides his bodily pain, another thing tormented him—that he had struck Dodi yesterday. This trifle lay heavy as a crime on his soul. After he was in bed he wanted the child brought to him that he might kiss it, and whispered "Noemi," with hot breath.

"What is it?" she answered.

But already he know not what he had asked. Directly he was in bed the fever broke out with full force. He was a strong man, and such are the first to succumb to this "aid-de-camp" of death, and suffer the most from it. Thenceforward he wandered continually; and Noemi heard every word he spoke. The sick man knew no one, not even himself. He who spoke through his lips was a stranger—a man who had no secrets, and told all he knew. The visions are akin to the delusions of madness; they turn on one fixed idea, and however the detail may change, the central figure returns ever and again to the surface.

In Timar's wandering there was one of these dominating figures—a woman. Not Timea, but Noemi—of her he continually spoke. Timea's name never passed his lips—she did not fill his soul.

For Noemi it was horror and rapture combined to listen to this unconscious babble—horror, because it spoke of such strange things, and took her with him to such unknown regions, that she trembled at a fever which compelled him to look on at such marvels—and yet it was bliss to hear him, for he always talked of her, and her only.

Once he was in a princely palace and talking with some great man. "To whom should his excellency give this decoration? I know a girl on the ownerless island—no one is more worthy of it than she. Give her the order. She is called Noemi; her other name? Do queens have another name? The first. Noemi the first, by the grace of God queen of the ownerless island and the rose-forest."

He carried his idea further. "If I become king of the ownerless island, I shall form a ministry. Almira will be inspector of meat, and Narcissa will be appointed to the dairy department. I shall demand security from them, and name them as confidential advisers." Then he talked of his palaces. "How do you like these saloons, Noemi? Does the gilding of this ceiling please you? Those children dancing on the golden background are like Dodi—are they not like him? A pity they are so high up. Are you cold in these great halls? So am I—come, let us go away. It is better by the fire in our little hut. I do not love these high palaces; and this town is often visited by earthquakes—I fear the vault may fall in on us. There! behind that little door some one is spying on us—an envious woman. Do not look, Noemi! Her malicious glance might do you harm. This house once belonged to her, and now she wanders through it like a ghost. See, she has a dagger in her hand, and wants to murder you; let us run away!"

But there was a hinderance in the way of escape—the frightful mass of gold. "I can not stand up, the gold drags me down. It is all on my breast; take it away! Oh, I am drowning in gold! The roof has fallen in, and gold is rolling down on me. I am suffocating. Noemi, give me your hand; pull me from under this horrible mountain of gold."

His hand lay in Noemi's all the time, and she thought, trembling, what a fearful power it was which tortured a poor sailor with such dreams of money. Then he began again: "You don't care for diamonds, Noemi? You little fool! Do you think their fire burns? Don't be afraid. Ha! you are right, it does burn—I did not know that—it is hell-fire. Even the names are alike—Diamond, Demon. We will throw them into the water—throw them from you. I know where they came from, and I will throw them back into the water. Don't be afraid, I will not remain long under water. Hold your breath and pray. As long as you can stay without taking breath I shall be down below; I am only going to dive into the cabin of the sunken ship. Ah! who is lying on this bed?"

Such a shudder seized him that he sprung from his couch and would have rushed away. Noemi was hardly able to get him back to bed. "Some one is lying there, but I must not say the name. See how the red moon shines in at the window. Shut the light out. I will not have it on my face. How near it is coming! Draw the curtain across!"

But the curtains were drawn, and besides, it was pitch-dark outside. When the fever-fit passed, he murmured, "Oh, how lovely you are without diamonds, Noemi!"

Then a fantasy seized him. "That man stands at our antipodes on the other side of the earth. If the earth were of glass he could look down upon us. But he can see me just as well as I see him. What is he doing? He is catching rattlesnakes, and when he comes back he will let them loose on the island. Don't let him land; don't let him come back! Almira! Almira! At him! tear him! Aha! now a giant snake has got him; it is strangling him. How frightful his face is! If only I need not see the snake swallow him! Will he look at me? Now there is only his head out, and he keeps looking at me. Oh, Noemi, cover my face that I may not see him!"

Again the dream-scene changes. "A whole fleet floats on the sea. What are the ships laden with? With flour. Now comes a whirlwind, a tornado seizes the ships, carries them into the clouds and tears them into splinters. The flour is all spilled: the whole world is white with it, white is the sea, white the heavens, and white the air. The moon peeps from the clouds, and only look how the wind covers its face with flour! It looks like some red-nosed old toper who has powdered his face. Laugh then, Noemi!" But she wrung her hands and shuddered. The poor creature was by his bed day and night. By day she sat on a chair at his side; by night she pulled her bed close to his and slept beside him: careless of the infection, she laid her head on Michael's pillow, pressed his perspiring brow to her cheek, and kissed away the burning fever-breaths from his parched lips.

Frau Therese tried by harmless remedies to reduce the fever, and took out the glass casements that the fresh air—the best medicine in fever cases—might freely penetrate the little room. She said to Noemi, that by her calculation the crisis would set in on the thirteenth day, when the illness would either take a turn for the better or terminate fatally.

How long Noemi knelt during these days by the sick man's bed and prayed to God, who had tried her so heavily, to have mercy on her poor heart! If only He would give Michael back to life—and then if the grave must have a sacrifice, there was she ready to die in his stead.

Providence delights in what one might call the irony of fate—Noemi offered to cruel death the whole world and her own self, in exchange for Michael's life. She fancied she had to do with a good fellow who might be bargained with. The destroying angel accepted her challenge.

On the thirteenth day the fever and delirium ceased: the previous nervous excitement gave place to intense exhaustion, which is a symptom of improvement, and permits a hope that with the greatest care the patient may be given back to life, if his mind is kept calm and he is preserved from anxiety or emotion: sick people are so easily excited at this stage of convalescence. His recovery hung on perfect tranquillity; any violent excitement would kill him. Noemi stayed all night by Timar's sick-bed: she never even went out once to see little Dodi; he slept in the outer room with Frau Therese. On the morning of the fourteenth day, while Michael lay sound asleep, Therese whispered in Noemi's car, "Little Dodi is very ill." The child now! Poor Noemi! Her little Dodi had the croup, the most dangerous of all childish maladies, against which all the skill of the physician is often powerless.

Mortally terrified, Noemi rushed to her child. The face of the innocent creature was quite changed. It was not crying—this disease has no characteristic cry, but so much the more dreadful is the suffering. How terrible, a child who can not complain, whom men can not help! Noemi looked blankly at her mother as if to ask, "And have you no cure for this?" Therese could hardly bear this look. "So many miserable sick and dying people have been helped by you, and for this one you know of no remedy!"

"None!" Noemi knelt down beside the child's little bed, pressed her lips on his, and murmured softly, "What is it, my darling, my little one, my angel? Look at me with thy pretty eyes."

But the little one would not lift up the pretty eyes, and when at last, after many kisses and entreaties, it opened the heavy lids, its expression was terrible—the look of a child which has already learned to fear death. "Oh, don't look so! not so!" The child never cried, but only gave utterance to a hoarse cough.

If only the other invalid in there does not hear it! Noemi held her child trembling in her arms, and listened to hear if the sleeper close by was yet awake. When she heard his voice she left the child and went to Michael. He was suffering from great exhaustion, irritable and peevish.

"Where had you gone?" he questioned Noemi. "The window is open; a rat might get in while I was asleep. Don't you see a rat about?" It is a constant delusion of typhus patients to see rats everywhere.

"They can't get in, my darling; there is a grating over the window."

"Ah! and where is the cold water?" Noemi gave him some to drink. But he was very angry with it. "That is not fresh cold water, it is quite warm. Do you want me to die of thirst?"

Noemi bore his crossness patiently. And when Michael fell asleep again, she ran out to Dodi. The two women replaced each other, so that as long as Michael slept, Therese sat by him, and when he awoke she gave Noemi a sign to leave her sick child and take her place by Michael's bed. And this went on through the long night. Noemi passed constantly from one sick-bed to the other, and she had to keep excuses always ready for her husband if he should ask where she had been.

The child grew worse. Therese could do nothing, and Noemi dared not weep for fear of Michael seeing her tearful eyes and asking the reason. The next morning Timar felt easier, and wished for some soup. Noemi hastened out to fetch it, as it was kept ready. The invalid swallowed it, and said he felt the better for it. Noemi seemed delighted at the good news.

"Well, and what is Dodi doing?" asked Michael.

Noemi trembled lest he should see the throbs of her heart at the question.

"He is asleep," she replied, gently.

"Asleep? But why asleep now? He is not ill?"

"Oh, no; he is all right."

"And why do you not bring him to me when he is awake?"

"Because then you are asleep."

"That is true; but when we are both awake together, you must bring him in and let me see him."

"I will do so, Michael."

The child sunk gradually. Noemi had to conceal from Timar that Dodi was ill, and constantly to invent stories about him, for his father constantly asked for him. "Does Dodi play with his little man?"

"Oh, yes, he is always playing with him" ( . . . with that fearful skeleton!).

"Does he talk of me?"

"He loves to talk of you" ( . . . he will do so soon when he is with the good God).

"Take him this kiss from me;" and Noemi bore to her child the parting kiss of his father.

Another day dawned. The awakening invalid found himself alone in the room. Noemi had watched all night by her child: she had looked on his death-struggle, and pressed her tears back into her heart; why had it not burst? When she went in to Michael she smiled again.

"Were you with Dodi?" asked the sick man.

"Yes, I have been with him."

"Is he asleep now?"

"Yes, he is asleep."

"Not really?"

"Truly, he sleeps well."

Noemi has just closed his eyes—for his last sleep. And she dared not betray her agony. She must show a smiling face. In the afternoon Michael was much excited again: as the day drew on, his nervous irritation increased. He called to Noemi, who was in the next room; she hastened in and looked lovingly at him. The invalid was peevish and suspicious. He noticed that a needle was sticking in Noemi's dress, with a thread of silk in it.

"Ah, you are beginning to work again! Have you time for that? What finery are you making?"

Noemi looked at him silently, and thought, "I am making Dodi's shroud;" and then aloud, "I am making myself a collar."

"Vanity, thy name is woman!" sighed Michael.

Noemi found a smile for him, and answered, "You are quite right."

Again the morning broke. Michael now suffered from sleeplessness; he could not close his eyes. And the thought troubled him as to what Dodi was doing. He sent Noemi out often to see if he wanted anything. And whenever she did so she kissed the little dead child on the bier, and spoke caressing words for Michael to hear: "My little Dodi! my darling sweet, asleep again! Tell mother you love her;" and then she came back to say that Dodi wanted for nothing.

"The boy sleeps too much," said Michael; "why don't you wake him?"

"I must wake him soon," said Noemi, gently.

Michael dozed a little, only a few minutes, and woke with a start. He did not know he had been asleep. "Noemi," he cried, "Dodi was singing; I heard him: how sweetly he sings!"

Noemi pressed both her hands to her heart, and drove back the outward expression of her agony with superhuman courage. Yes, he is already singing in heaven, amidst the angelic choir—among the innumerable seraphim! that was the song he joined in.

Toward evening Michael sent Noemi out. "Go and put Dodi to bed, and give him a kiss for me."

She did so. "What did Dodi say?" he asked her. Noemi could not speak; she bent over Michael and pressed a kiss on his lips.

"That was his message, the treasure!" cried Michael, and the kiss sent him to sleep. The child sent it to him from his own slumber.

The next morning he asked again about the boy. "Take Dodi out into the air; it is bad for him to be in the house; carry him into the garden."

They were about to do so. Therese had dug a grave during the night at the foot of a weeping-willow.

"You go too; and stay out there with him. I shall doze, I think, I feel so much better," Michael told Noemi.

Noemi left the sick-room and turned the key: then they carried God's recovered angel out, and committed him to the care of the universal mother—earth. Noemi would not have a mound raised over him; Michael would be so sad when he saw it, and it would retard his recovery. They made a flower-bed there, and planted in its midst a rose-tree—one of those Timar had grafted—with white flowers, whose purity was unstained. Then she went back to the sick man.

His first words were, "Where have you left Dodi?"

"Out in the garden."

"What has he on?"

"His white frock and blue ribbons."

"That suits him so well. Is he well wrapped up?"

"Oh, yes, very well" (with three feet of earth).

"Bring him in when you go out again."

At this Noemi could not stop in the room; she went out and threw herself on Therese's breast, but even then she could not shed a tear. She must not. Then she tottered on into the garden, went to the willow, broke off a bud from the rose-tree, and went back to Michael.

"Well, where's Dodi?" he said, impatiently.

But Noemi knelt down by his bed and held out to him—the white rose. Michael took it and smelled it. "How curious!" he said; "this flower has no scent—as if it had grown on a grave."

She rose and went out. "What is the matter?" asked Timar, turning to Therese.

"Don't be angry," said she in a gentle, soothing tone. "You were so dangerously ill. Thank Heaven, you are getting over it. But this illness is infectious, and particularly during convalescence. I told Noemi that until you were quite well she must not bring the child near you. Perhaps I was wrong, but I meant it for the best."

Michael pressed her hand. "You did quite right. Stupid that I was, not to have thought of it myself. Perhaps he is not even in the next room?"

"No. We have made him a little house out in the garden." Poor thing, she told the truth.

"You are very good, Therese. Go to Dodi and send Noemi to me. I will not ask her again to bring him to me. Poor Noemi! But as soon as I can get up and go out, you will let me go to him, won't you?"

"Yes, Michael." By this pious fraud it was possible to satisfy him till he was out of bed and on the road to recovery. He was still very weak, and could hardly walk. Noemi helped him to dress. Leaning on her shoulder, he left his room, and she led him to the little seat before the house, sat beside him, put her arm in his, and supported his head on her shoulder. It was a lovely warm summer afternoon. Michael felt as if the murmuring trees were whispering in his ears, as if the humming bees brought him a message, and the grass made music at his feet. His head swam.

One thought grew on him. When he looked at Noemi, a painful suspicion awoke in his breast. There was something in her expression which he could not understand; he must know it. "Noemi."

"What is it, my Michael?"

"Darling Noemi, look at me." She raised her eyes to his. "Where is little Dodi?"

The poor creature could no longer hide her grief. She raised her martyr face to heaven, stretched up both hands, and faltered, "There! . . . there!"

"He is dead!" Michael could hardly utter the words. Noemi sunk on his breast. Her tears were no longer to be controlled; she sobbed violently.

He put his arm round her and let her weep on. It would have been sacrilege not to let these tears have free course.

He had no tears—no. He was all wonder; he was amazed at the greatness of soul which raised the poor despised creature so far above himself. That she should have been able to conceal her sorrow so long out of tender consideration for him whom she loved! How great that love must be! When the paroxysm was over she looked smiling at Timar, like the sun through the rainbow.

"And you could keep this from me?"

"I feared for your life."

"You dared not weep lest I should see traces of tears."

"I waited for the time when I might weep."

"When you were not with me, you nursed the sick child, and I was angry with you."

"You were never unkind, Michael."

"When you took my kiss to him you knew it was a farewell; when I reproached you with your vanity you were sewing his shroud; when you showed me a cheerful face your heart was pierced with the seven wounds of the Blessed Virgin! Oh, Noemi, I worship you!"

But the poor thing only asked him to love her. Michael drew her on to his knee. The leaves, the grass, the bees, whispered now so clearly that he began to understand the swimming in his head.

After a long and gloomy silence he spoke again. "Where have you laid him? Take me to him, Noemi."

"Not to-day," said Noemi. "It is too far for you—to-morrow."

But neither to-morrow nor the next day would she take him there.

"You would sit by the grave and make yourself ill again: that is why I have made no mound over him, nor raised a cross, that you may not go there and grieve."

Timar, however, was sad at this. When he was strong enough to walk alone, he went about seeking for what they would not show him.

One day he came back to the house with a cheerful face. In his hand he held a half-blown rosebud, one of those white ones which have no scent. "Is it this?" he asked Noemi.

She nodded: it could no longer be concealed. The white rose had put him on the track, and he noticed that it had been newly transplanted. And then he was tranquil, like one who has done with all that had given an object to life. He sat all day on the little bench near the house, drew on the gravel with his stick, and muttered to himself, "You would not exchange him for the whole earth full of diamonds, nor the whole heaven full of angels; . . . but for a miserable pipe you could strike his hand."

The beautiful walnut-wood house stood half finished, and the great convolvulus had crept over its four walls. Michael never set foot in it.

The only thing that kept up his half-recovered strength and his broken spirit was Noemi's love.



CHAPTER III.

MELANCHOLY.

One bud after another opened on the rose-tree. Timar did nothing but watch the development and blossoming of these rosebuds. When one of them opened he broke it off, put it in his pocket-book, and dried it there on his breast. This was a melancholy task. All the tenderness lavished on him by Noemi could not cure his sadness. The woman's sweet caresses were burdensome to him. And yet Noemi could have comforted him at the cost of a single word; but modest reserve kept back that word, and it never occurred to Michael to question her.

It is characteristic of those whose mind is diseased to occupy themselves only with the past.

At last Noemi said to Timar, "Michael, it would be good for you to go away from here—out into the world. Everything here arouses mournful memories in you; you must go away to get well. I have done your packing, and the fruit-dealers will fetch you away to-morrow."

Michael did not answer, but expressed his assent by a nod. The dangerous illness he had passed through had affected his nerves; and the situation he had brought upon himself, the blow which had struck him, had worked on those nerves so painfully, that he was forced to acknowledge that a longer stay would lead to madness or suicide.

Suicide? There is no easier road out of a difficult position: failure, despair, mental conflict, blasted hopes, heart-pangs, fantastic bugbears, the memory of losses, phantoms of the beloved dead—all these are parts of a bad dream. One touch on the trigger of the pistol, and one awakes. Those who remain behind can go on with the dream.

On the last evening, Michael, Noemi, and Therese sat all three after supper on the little bench outside, and Michael remembered that they had once been four together there.

"What can that moon really be?" asked Noemi.

Michael's hand, which Noemi held in hers, was clinched with sudden violence.

"My evil star," he thought to himself. "Oh, if I had never seen it, that red crescent!"

Therese answered her daughter's question: "It is a burned-out and chilled world, on which neither trees, flowers, nor animals, no air or water, no sounds or colors exist. When I was a girl at school, we used often to look through a telescope at the moon; it is full of mountains, and we were told they were the craters of extinct volcanoes. No telescope is powerful enough to show people on it, but learned men know with certainty that neither air nor water exists there. Without air and water nothing can live that has a human body, so no mortal can possibly be there."

"But what if something did really live in it?"

"What could do so?"

"I will tell you what I think. Often in the old times, when I was still alone, I could not rid myself of one engrossing thought—especially when I sat by myself on the beach, and looked into the water. I felt as if something were drawing me into it, and calling to me that it was good to be down below there, and that there all was peace. Then I said to myself—Good! the body would rest at the bottom of the Danube; but where would the soul go?—it must find a dwelling somewhere. Then the thought arose that the soul which wrenched itself so forcibly and by its own will from its mortal shell could only soar to the moon. I believe that now even more firmly. If neither trees nor flowers, neither water nor air, neither colors nor sounds, can there exist—well, it is all the better fitted for those who did not wish to be encumbered with a body: there they will find a world where there is nothing to trouble them, nor anything to give them pleasure."

Therese and Michael both rose with a start from beside Noemi, who could not understand what had moved them. She did not know that her own father was a suicide, and that he whose hand she held was ready to become one. Michael said the night was cool, they had better go in. One more haunting thought was now linked with the sight of the moon. The first he inherited from Timea, the other from Noemi. What a fearful penalty—that the man should continually see before him in the heavens that shining witness, eternally recalling him to his first sin, the first fateful error of his ruined life!

The next day Michael left the island: he passed by the unfinished walnut-wood house without even glancing at it.

"You will return with the spring flowers," whispered Noemi tenderly in his ear. The poor thing thought it quite natural that for half of the year Michael should not belong to her. "But to whom does he then belong?" That question never occurred to her.

When Michael arrived at Komorn, the long journey had still more exhausted him. Timea was frightened when she saw him, and could hardly recognize him; even Athalie was alarmed, and with good reason.

"You have been ill?" said Timea, leaning on her husband's breast.

"Very ill, for many weeks."

"On your journey?"

"Yes," answered Timar, to whom this seemed like a cross-examination. He must be on his guard at every question.

"Good God! and had you anyone to nurse you there among those strangers?"

The words had almost escaped him, "Oh, yes, an angel!" but he caught himself up and answered, "You can get anything for money." Timea did not know how to show her sympathy, and so Michael could detect no change in the always apathetic face. She was always the same, and the frigid kiss of welcome drew them no closer together.

Athalie whispered in his ear, "For God's sake, sir, take care of your life!"

Timar felt the poisoned sting hidden beneath this tender consideration. He must live that Timea might suffer; for if she became a widow, nothing would stand in the way of her happiness. And that would be a hell to Athalie.

It seemed to Timar as if the demon who hated both him and his wife was now praying for the prolongation of his detested life, so that their mutual suffering might last the longer. Every one remarked the great change which had taken place in him. In the spring he was a strong man in the prime of life; now he was like a feeble, voiceless shadow.

He withdrew to his office as soon as he arrived, and spent the whole day there. His secretary found the ledger lying on the desk just as he had opened it; he had not even looked at it. His agents were informed of his return, and hastened to present yards of reports. He said to them all, "Very good," and signed what they required, sometimes in the wrong place, sometimes twice over. At last he shut himself up from every one in his room, under pretense of requiring sleep. But his servants heard him walking up and down for hours together.

When he went to the ladies to dine in their company, he looked so gloomy and stern that no one had the courage to address him. He hardly touched food, and never tasted wine. But an hour after dinner he rang for the servant, and asked angrily whether they were ever going to get the meal ready—he had forgotten that it was over. In the evening he could not sit up, so tired was he; when he sat down he dozed off at once; as soon, however, as he was undressed and in bed, slumber fled suddenly from his eyes. "Oh, how cold this bed is—everything in the house is cold!" Every piece of furniture, the pictures on the walls, even the old frescoes on the ceiling, seemed to cry to him, "What have you come here for? This is not your home! You are a stranger here!" How cold is this bed!

The man who came to call him to supper found him already in bed. On hearing this, Timea came to him and asked whether he would have something.

"Nothing—no, nothing at all," answered Timar. "I am only overtired by the journey."

"Shall I send for the doctor?"

"Pray don't. I am not ill."

Timea wished him good-night, and went away after again feeling his forehead with her hand. But Timar was not in a condition to sleep. He heard every noise in the house; he heard them whispering and creeping on tiptoe past his door, so as not to disturb him. He was thinking where a man could best flee from himself. Into the realm of dreams? That would be good, indeed, if only one could find the way there as easily as into the kingdom of death. But one can not force one's self to dream. Opium? That is one way—the suicide of sleep. Gradually he noticed that it was growing darker in the room: the shades of night veiled closely every object, the light grew dim. At last he was surrounded by a darkness like that of a thick, motionless mist, like subterranean gloom, or the night of the blind: such an obscurity one "sees" even in sleep. Michael knew he was asleep, and the blindness lying over his eyes was that of slumber. Yes, he now had full consciousness of his position. He was lying in his own bed in his Komorn house—a table beside him with an antique bronze lamp-stand, and a painted lamp-shade with Chinese figures on it; over his head hung a large clock with a chime; the silken curtains were let down. The curious old bed had a sort of drawer below it, which could be drawn out and used as a second bed. It was beautifully made—one of those beds only found in fine old houses, in which a whole family might find room to sleep. Timar knew that he had not bolted his door; any one could come in who chose. How if some one came to murder him? And what difference would there be between sleep and death? This puzzled him in his dreams.

Once he dreamed that the door opened softly and some one entered: a woman's steps. The curtain rustled, and something leaned over him: a woman's face. "Is it you, Noemi?" Michael thought in his dream, and started. "How came you here? If some one saw you?" It was dark, he could see nothing; but he heard the person sit down by his bed and listen to his breathing. Thus had Noemi done many a night in the little hut. "Oh, Noemi, will you watch again all through the night? When will you sleep?"

The female figure, as if in answer, knelt down and drew out the shelf below the bed. Michael felt a mixture of fear and rapture in his breast. "You will lie down beside me; oh, how I love you, but I tremble for you!" and then the figure prepared a bed on the shelf and lay down. The dreamer in the bed longed to bend over her, to embrace and kiss her, and would have called again to her, "Go, hasten away from here, you will be seen;" but he could move neither limbs nor tongue, they were heavy as lead; and then the woman slept too. Michael sunk deeper into dreamland. His fancy flew through past and future, soared into the region of the impossible, and returned to the sleeping woman. He dreamed that he was awake, and yet the phantom was beside him.

At last it began to dawn, and the sun shone through the window with more wonderful radiance than ever before. "Awake, awake!" whispered Michael in his dream. "Go home—the daylight must not find you here. Leave me now!" He struggled with the dream. "But you are not really here—it is only a delusion!"

He forced himself to sever the bonds in which sleep held him, and awoke completely. It was really morning, the sunlight streamed through the curtains, and on the shelf below the bed lay a sleeping woman with her head on her arm.

"Noemi!" cried Michael. The slumbering form awoke at the call and looked up. It was Timea—

"Do you want anything?" asked the woman, rising hastily from her couch. She had heard the tone but not the name. Her husband was still under the influence of his dream. "Timea!" he stammered sleepily, astonished at the metamorphosis of Noemi into Timea.

"Here I am," said she, laying her hand on the bed.

"How is it possible?" cried he, drawing up the quilt to his chin as if afraid of the face leaning over him.

"I was anxious about you, I was afraid you might have some attack in the night, and I wanted to be near you." In the tone of her voice, in her look, lay such sincere and natural tenderness as could not be assumed: a woman's instinct is fidelity.

Michael collected himself. His first feeling was alarm, his second self-reproach. This poor woman lying by his bed was the widow of a living man. She had never known a joy in common with her husband; now when he was in pain, she came to share it with him; and then followed the eternal falsehood—he must not accept this tenderness, he must repulse it.

Michael said with forced composure, "Timea, I beg you not to do this again; do not come into my room. I have been suffering from an infectious illness; I caught the plague on my journey, and I tremble for your life if you approach me. Keep far from me, I adjure you; I wish to be alone, both by day and night. There is nothing the matter with me now, but I feel that I must, for prudence' sake, avoid all those belonging to me; so I beg you earnestly not to do this again, never again." Timea sighed deeply, cast down her eyes, and left the room. She had not even undressed, but had only lain down in her clothes at her husband's feet.

When she was gone, Michael got up and dressed; his mind was much disturbed. The longer he continued this dual life, the more he felt the conflict of the double duties he had taken on himself. He was responsible for the fate of two noble, self-sacrificing souls. He had made both miserable, and himself more unhappy than either.

What outlet could he find? If only one or other were an every-day creature, so that he could hate and despise her or buy her off! But both were equally nobly gifted: the fate of both was so heavy a charge against the author of it, that no excuse existed. How could he tell Timea who Noemi was, or Noemi about Timea? Suppose he were to divide all his wealth between the two, or if he gave his money to one and his heart to the other? But either was alike impossible, for neither was faithless or gave him a right to reject them.

Living at home made Michael yet more ill.

He never left his room all day, spoke to no one, and sat till evening in one place, without doing anything. At last Timea resorted to a physician. The result of the consultation was that Michael was ordered to the seaside, that the water might restore to him what the land had taken from him. To this advice he replied, "I will not go where there is company." Then they suggested that he should choose some place where the season was over and the visitors gone; there he would find solitude. The cold baths were the important point. He now remembered that in one of the valleys near the Platten See he had a summer villa, which he had bought years ago when he hired the fishing of the Balaton lake, and he had only been there two or three times since. There, said he, would he spend the end of the autumn.

The doctors approved his choice. The districts of Zala and Vessprimer on the banks of the lake are like the Vale of Tempe. Fourteen miles of unbroken garden-land form a charming chain of landscapes, with country-seats strewn here and there. The splendid lake is a sea in miniature, full of loveliness and romance; here is soft Italian air, the people are kind and cordial, the mineral springs curative; nothing could be better for a depressed invalid than to spend the autumn here. So the doctors sent Michael to the Platten See. But they had forgotten that toward the end of the summer hail-storms had laid waste the whole district; and nothing is more depressing than a place ruined by hail. The vineyards, which usually resound during the vintage with joyous cries, now stand deserted: the leaves of the fruit-trees are coppery-green or rusty brown; they take their leave until the coming spring: all is silent and sad; even the roads are overgrown with moss, for no one uses them. In the cornfields, instead of the sheaves of grain, ineradicable weeds abound, and instead of the golden heads, thistles, burdock, and nightshade are rampant, for no one comes to cut them down.

At such a season Michael arrived at his villa on the Balaton. It was an ancient pile. Some noble family had built it as a summer residence, because the view had pleased them and they had money enough to afford themselves this luxury. It had but one low story within massive walls, a veranda looking over the lake, and trellises with large fig-trees. The heirs of the first owners had got rid of the lonely chateau for a nominal price, as it had no value except to a person bitten with the misanthropic desire to live there in solitude.

No human dwelling is to be found within two miles of it, and even beyond that distance most of the houses are uninhabited. The presses and cellars are not open on account of the failure of the vintage. At Fured all the blinds are down and the last invalid has left; even the steamers no longer ply; the pump-room at the baths stands empty, and on the promenade the fallen leaves rustle round the feet of the passer-by—no one thinks it worth while to sweep them away. Not a man nor even a stork is left in the place—only the majestic Balaton murmurs mysteriously as it tosses its waves, and no one knows why it is angry. In its midst rises a bare rock, on whose top stands a convent with two towers, in which live seven monks—a crypt full of princely bones from top to bottom.

And here Timar came to seek for health.

Michael only brought one servant with him, and after a few days sent him back under pretense that the people of the house sufficed for his service. But there was only one old man, and he quite deaf.

Round the villa no human voice was heard, not even the sound of a bell, only the haunting murmur of the great lake.

Timar sat all day on the shore, and listened to the voices of the water. Often, when there was not a breath of air stirring, the lake began to roar, then the color of its surface changed to an emerald green as far as the eye could see: over the dark mirror of the waves not one sail, not a single ship, barge, or boat was visible; it might have been the Dead Sea.

This lake possesses the double quality of strengthening the body and depressing the mind. The chest expands, the appetite increases, but the mind is inclined to a melancholy and sentimental state which carries one back to fairyland.

Timar floated for hours on the gently rocking waves; he wandered whole days on the shore, and could hardly tear himself away when night fell. He sought no distraction from shooting or fishing. Once he took out his gun, and forgot it somewhere by the trunk of a tree: another time he caught a pike, but let it get away with his fly. He could fix his attention on nothing.

He had taken a powerful retracting telescope with him, through which he gazed at the starry heavens during the long nights; at the planets with their moons and rings, on which in winter white spots are visible, while in summer a red light surrounds them; and then at that great enigma of the firmament, the moon, which when looked at through the glass appears like a shining ball of lava, with its transparent ridges, its deep craters, bright plains and dark shadows. It is a world of emptiness. Nothing is there except the souls of those who violently separated themselves from their body to get rid of its load. There they are at peace; they feel nothing, do nothing, know neither sorrow nor joy, gain nor loss; there is neither air nor water, winds nor storms, no flowers or living creatures, no war, no kisses, no heart-throbs—neither birth nor death; only "nothing," and perhaps memory.

That would be worse than hell, to live in the moon as a disembodied soul in the realm of nothingness, and to remember the earth, where are green grass and red blood, where the air echoes with the roll of the thunder and the kisses of lovers, where life and death exist. And yet something whispered to Michael that he must take refuge among the exiles to that region of annihilation. There was no other way of escape from his miserable existence.

The nights of autumn grew longer and the days shorter, and with the waning daylight the water in the lake grew colder and colder. But Timar enjoyed bathing in it even more. His frame had regained its former elasticity, all traces of his illness had vanished, nerves and muscles were as steel; but his mental agony increased.

The nights were always clear and the skies thickly sown with stars: Timar sat by his open window and studied the shining points in boundless space through his glass, but never until the moon had set. He detested the moon, as we grow to hate a place we know too well, and with whose inhabitants we have quarreled.

During his observations of the starry heavens he had the exceptional good fortune to witness one of those celestial phenomena which are all but unique in the annals of astronomy. A comet returning after centuries of absence appeared in the sky. Timar said to himself, "This is my star; it is as lost as my soul; its coming and going are as aimless as mine, and its whole existence as empty and vain a show as is my life." Jupiter and his four moons were moving in the same direction as the comet; their orbits must cross. When the comet approached the great planet, its tail seemed to divide; the attraction of Jupiter began to take effect. The great star was trying to rob its lord, the sun, of this vaporous body. The next night the comet's tail was split in two. Then the largest and most distant of Jupiter's moons drew rapidly near.

"What has become of my star?" asked Timar.

The third night the nucleus of the comet had grown dull and began to disperse, and Jupiter's moon was close to it. The fourth night the comet had been divided into two parts; there were two heads and two tails, and both the starry phantoms began in separate parabolic curves their aimless flight through space. So "this" occurs in the heavens as well as on earth?

Timar followed this marvelous phenomenon with his telescope till it was lost in impenetrable space. This sight made the deepest impression on his mind; now he had done with the world. There are hundreds of motives for suicide, but the most urgent are to be found among those who give themselves up to scientific research.

Keep a watchful eye on those who seek to fathom the secrets of nature without a technical education. Hide away the knife and the pistol every night, and search their pockets lest they carry poison about them.

Yes, Timar was determined to kill himself. This idea does not come to strong characters all at once, but it ripens in them by degrees. They grow used to it as the years go by, and carefully provide for its execution. The thought had now ripened in Timar, and he went systematically to work.

When the severe weather set in, he left the Platten See and returned to Komorn. He made his will. His whole property he left to Timea and the poor, and with such careful foresight that he provided a separate fund out of which Timea, in case she married again, or her heirs if they stood in need of it, would receive a pension of a hundred thousand gulden.

The following was his plan. As soon as the season permitted he would go away, ostensibly to Egypt, but really to the ownerless island. There he would die.

If he could induce Noemi to die with him, then in death they would be united. Oh, Noemi would consent! What would she do in this world without Michael? What worth would the world have for such a one as she?

Both there by Dodi's side.

* * * * *

Timar spent the winter partly in Komorn, partly in Raab and Vienna; everywhere his life was a burden to him. He thought he read in every face, "This man is melancholy mad." He noticed people whispering and making signs when he appeared—women were shy of him, and men tried to look unconscious; and he fancied that in his distraction he did and said things which gave evidence of his mental disease, and wondered people did not laugh. Perhaps they were afraid of laughing.

But they had no reason to fear. He was not lively to throw pepper in the eyes of the people near him, though odd fancies did now and then occur to him; as, for instance, when Johann Fabula came to make him an oration as curator of the church, and stood as stiff before him as if he had swallowed the spit, an impulse seized Timar, almost irresistibly, to put both hands on the curator's shoulders and turn a somersault over his head.

Something lay in Michael's expression which made the blood run cold.

Athalie met this glance; often, as they sat at meals, Timar's eyes were fixed on her. She was a wonderfully beautiful woman; Michael's eyes rested on her lovely snowy neck, so that she felt uneasy at this silent homage to her charms.

Michael was thinking—"If only I had you in my power for once, you lovely white throat, so as to crush the life out of you with my iron hand!" This was what he longed for when he admired the splendid Bacchante form of Athalie.

Only Timea was not afraid of him—she had nothing to fear. At last it seemed impossible to Timar to wait for the tardy spring. What does he want with the springing flowers who will soon be at rest under the turf?

The day before his departure he gave a great banquet, and invited every one, including even slight acquaintances. The house was crowded with guests. Before sitting down he said to Fabula, "My brother, sit near me, and if I get drunk toward morning and lose my senses, see that I am carried into my traveling-chaise, and put me on the seat; then harness the horses and send me off." He wished to leave his house and home while unconscious.

But when the guests toward morning had sunk one here and another there under the table, our Herr Johann Fabula was snoring comfortably in his arm-chair, and only Timar had kept his head. Mad people are like King Mithridates and the poison—wine does not affect them. So he had to get his carriage himself and start on his journey. In his head reality and dreams, imagination, memory, and hallucination were in a whirl. It seemed to him as if he had stood by the couch of a sleeping saint with a marble face, and as if he had kissed the lips of the white statue, and it had not awoke under his kiss. Perhaps it was only a vision. Then he thought he remembered that behind the door of a dark recess, as he passed, a lovely Maenad's head looked out, framed in rich tresses. She had sparkling eyes and red lips, between which shone two rows of pearls, as she held the candle and asked the sleep-walker, "Where are you going, sir?"

And he had whispered in the witch's ear, "I am going to make Timea happy."

Then the ideal face had turned to a Medusa head, and the curls to snakes. Perhaps this was hallucination too.

Timar awoke toward noon in his carriage, when the post-horses were changed. He was already far from Komorn, and his intention was unchanged. Late at night he arrived on the Danube shore, where the little boat he had ordered awaited him; he went over in the night to the island.

A thought came into his head. "How if Noemi were dead already?" Why should not this be possible? What a burden it would free him from—that of persuading her to the dreadful step. He who has one fixed idea expects of fate that everything should happen as he has planned.

Near the white rose-bush no doubt a second already stands, which will bloom red in spring—on Noemi's grave. Soon there will be a third with yellow blossoms, the flower of the man of gold.

Occupied with these thoughts, he landed on the island shore. It was still night and the moon shone. The unfinished house stood like a tomb on the grass-grown field; the windows and door-ways were hung with matting to keep out snow and rain. Michael hastened to the old dwelling. Almira met him and licked his hand; she did not bark, but took a corner of his cloak in her teeth and drew him to the window. The moon shone through the lattice, and Michael looked into the little room, which was quite light.

He could clearly perceive that only one bed was in the room, the other was gone. On this bed slept Therese; it was as he had thought—Noemi was already at rest under the rose-bush. It is well.

He knocked at the window. "It is I, Therese." At this the woman came out on the veranda. "Are you sleeping alone, Therese?" said Timar.

"Yes."

"Has Noemi gone up to Dodi?"

"Not so. Dodi has come down to Noemi."

Timar looked inquiringly in her face. Then the woman grasped his hand, and led him with a smile to the back of the house, where the window of the other little room looked out. This room was light, for a night-lamp was burning there. Timar looked in and saw Noemi on the white bed, with her arm round a golden-haired cherub which lay on her breast. "What is this?" Timar faltered out.

Therese smiled gently. "Do you not see? Little Dodi longed to come back to us; it was better here, he thought, than up in heaven. He said to the dear Lord, 'Thou hast angels enough; let me return to those who had only me'—and the Lord allowed it."

"How can it be?"

"H'm! h'm! The old story. A poor woman again who died, and we have adopted the poor orphan. You are not angry?" Timar trembled in every limb as if with ague. "Pray do not wake the sleepers before morning," said Therese, "It is bad for babies to be waked: children's lives are so precarious. You will be patient, won't you?"

It never occurred to Timar to protest. He threw off his cap and cloak, drew off his coat, and turned up his shirt-sleeves. Therese thought he was mad. And why not? He ran out to the walnut-house, tore the mattings down, drew out his carpenter's bench, placed the unfinished door-panel on it, took his chisel and began to work.

It was just growing light. Noemi dreamed that some one was at work in the new house; the plane grated over the hard wood, and the busy workman sung—

"For all the gold the world could hold, I would not give my Dodi's curl."

And when she opened her eyes she still heard the plane and the song.



CHAPTER IV.

THERESE.

Timar had succeeded in robbing every one.

From Timea he stole first her father's million, then the manly ideal of her heart, and kept for himself her wifely troth. From Noemi he stole her loving heart, her womanly tenderness, her whole being. Therese he robbed of her trust, the last belief of her misanthropic mind in the possible goodness of a man; then he took the island, in order to restore it to her, and so to obtain her gratitude. Theodor Krisstyan he defrauded of half a world—for he exiled him to another hemisphere. From Athalie he took father, mother, home, and bridegroom, her whole present and future happiness. He robbed his friend Katschuka of the hope of a blissful life. The respect shown to him by the world, the tears of the poor, the thanks of the orphan, the decorations bestowed by his king, were they not all thefts? By deceit he obtained from the smugglers, the fidelity with which they guarded his secret—a thief who steals from other thieves! He even robbed the good God of a little angel. His soul was not his; he had pledged it to the moon, and had not kept his promise: he had not paid what he owed. The poison was ready which was to transport him to that distant star of night—the devils were already rejoicing and stretching out their claws to receive the poor soul. He took them in too; he did not kill himself, but defrauded even death. He laid hands on a paradise in the midst of the world, and took the forbidden fruit from the tree while the watching archangel turned his back, and in that hidden Eden he defied all human law: the clergy, the king, the judge, the general, the tax-collector, the police—all were deceived and defrauded by him.

And everything succeeded with him. How long would he go unpunished?

He could deceive every one but himself. He was always sad, even when he outwardly smiled. He knew what he ought to be called, and would gladly have shown himself in his true character.

But that was impossible. The boundless, universal respect—the rapturous love—if only one of these were really due to his true self! Honor, humanity, self-sacrifice were the original principles of his character, the atmosphere of his being. Unheard-of temptations had drawn him in the opposite direction; and now he was a man whom every one loved, honored, and respected, and who was only hated and despised by himself. Fate had blessed him since his last illness with such iron strength that now nothing hurt him, and instead of aging he seemed to renew his youth.

He was busy all through the summer with manual labor. The little house he had erected the year before he now had to finish, and to add the carver's and turner's work to it. He borrowed from the Muses their creative genius: a great artist was lost in Timar. Every pillar in the little house was of a different design: one was formed of two intwining snakes, whose heads made the capital; another, of a palm-tree with creepers climbing up it; the third showed a vine with squirrels and woodpeckers half hidden in its branches; and the fourth a clump of bulrushes rising from their leaves. The internal panels of the walls were a fanciful mosaic of carving; every table and chair was a work of art, and exquisitely inlaid with light-colored woods to make a pleasant contrast with the dark walnut. Each door and window betrayed some original invention; some disappeared in the wall, some slid up into the roof, and all were opened and shut by curious wooden bolts—for as Timar had declared that no nail should be put into the whole house which was not made by himself, not a morsel of iron was used in it.

What delight when the house was ready and he conducted his dear ones into it, and could say, "See, all this is my handiwork! A king could not give his queen such a present."

But it had taken years to complete it, and four winters had Timar spent in Komorn and four summers in the island, before Dodi the second had his house ready for him.

Then Michael had another task before him; he must teach Dodi to read. Dodi was a lively, healthy, good-tempered boy, and Timar said he would teach him everything himself—reading, writing, swimming, also gardening and mason's and carpenter's work. He who knows these trades can always earn his bread. Timar fancied things would always go on thus, and he could live this life to the end of his days. But suddenly fate cried "Halt!"

Or rather not fate, but Therese. Eight years had passed since Timar had found his way to the little island. Then Noemi and Timea were both children: now Noemi was twenty-two, Timea twenty-one, Athalie would soon be twenty-five; but Therese was over forty-five, Timar himself nearly forty, and little Dodi was in his fifth year.

One of them must prepare to go hence, for her time was come, and her cup of suffering was full enough for a long life: that one was Therese.

One summer afternoon when her daughter was out with the child, she said to Timar, "Michael, I have something to tell you—this autumn will be my last. I know that death is near. For twenty years I have suffered from the disease which will kill me; it is heart complaint. Do not look on this as a figure of speech; it is a fatal disease, but I have always concealed it, and never complained. I have kept it under by patience, and you have helped me by the love you showed and the joys you prepared for me. If you had not done so, I should long have lain beneath the sod. But I can bear it no longer. For a year past sleep has fled from my eyes, and I hear my heart beat all day. It throbs quickly three or four times, as if frightened, then comes a sort of half-beat; then it stops entirely for a few moments, till it begins pulsating again rapidly after one or two slow throbs, followed by short beats and long pauses. This must soon come to an end. I often turn faint, and only keep up by an effort of will; this will not last through the summer—and I am content it should be so. Noemi has now another object for her affection. I will not trouble you, Michael, with questions, nor require of you any promise; spoken words are vain and empty—only what we feel is true. You feel what you are to Noemi, and she to you. What is there to disquiet me? I can die without even troubling the merciful God with my feeble prayers. He has given me all I could have asked of Him. Is it not so, Michael?"

Michael's head sunk. This had often of late destroyed his sleep. It had not escaped him that Therese's health was failing rapidly, and he had thought with trembling that she might be suddenly overtaken by death. What would then become of Noemi? How could he leave the delicate creature here alone the whole winter with her little child? Who would help and protect her? He had often put the question aside, but now it confronted him, and must be considered.

Therese was right. The same afternoon a friendly fruit-woman came to the island, and while Therese was counting out her baskets of peaches, she suddenly fell down in a swoon. She recovered quickly, and three days later the woman came again, Therese was determined to serve her, and fainted once more. The fruit-dealer sighed heavily; the next time she came Noemi and Michael would not let her go in to Therese, but served her themselves. The woman remarked that the good lady would do well to see the priest, as she seemed so seriously ill.

Noemi did not yet know that her mother was dangerously ill; her frequent fainting-fits were put down to the hot weather. Therese said that many women suffered in the same way as they grew older. Timar was very attentive to her; he would not let her be troubled with household work, took care that she should rest, and made the child be quiet if he was noisy, but Therese's sleeplessness could not be cured.

One day all four sat together at dinner in the outer room, when Almira's barks announced the approach of strangers. Therese looked out, and said in great alarm, "Go inside quickly, that no one may see you."

Timar looked out, and he too saw that it would not be advisable for him to meet the new-comer, for it was none other than his Reverence Herr Sandorovics, the dean who had received the order, who would not fail to recognize Herr von Levetinczy, and would have some pleasant things to say to him. "Push the table away and leave me alone," said Frau Therese, making Noemi and Dodi rise too. And as if all her strength had returned, she helped to carry the table into the next room, so that when his reverence knocked at the door she was alone, and had drawn her bedstead across the door-way so as to prevent access to the inner apartment.

The dean's beard was longer and grayer since we last saw him; but his cheeks were rosy, and his figure that of a Samson. His deacon and acolyte, who had come with him, had remained in the veranda, and were trying to make friends with the great dog.

The reverend gentleman came in alone, with his hand out as if to give any one a chance of kissing it. As Therese showed no inclination to avail herself of the opportunity, the visitor was at once in a bad temper. "Well, don't you know me again, you sinful woman?"

"Oh, I know you well enough, sir, and I know I am a sinner—what brings you here?"

"What brings me, you old gossip? You ask me that, you God-forsaken heathen! It is clear you don't know me."

"I told you before that I knew you. You are the priest who would not bury my poor husband."

"No—because he left the world in an unauthorized way, without confession or absolution. Therefore it befell him to be put under ground like a dog. If you don't wish to be buried like a dog too, look to it: repent and confess while there is yet time. Your last hour may come to-day or to-morrow. Pious women brought me the news of your being near death, and begged me to come here and give you absolution—you have to thank them for my presence."

"Speak low, sir; my daughter is in the next room, and she would be alarmed."

"Indeed! your daughter? and a man and a child too?"

"Certainly."

"And the man is your daughter's husband?"

"Yes."

"Who married them?"

"He who married Adam and Eve—God."

"Foolish woman! That was when there were no priests nor altars. But now things are not managed so easily, and there is a law to govern them."

"I know it: the law drove me to this island; but that law has no jurisdiction here."

"So you are an absolute heathen?"

"I wish to live and die in peace."

"And you have permitted your daughter to live in shame?"

"What is shame?"

"Shame? The contempt of all respectable people."

"Does that make me warm or cold?"

"Unfeeling clod! You only care for your bodily weal. You never think of the salvation of your soul. I come to show you the way to heaven, and you prefer the road to hell! Do you believe in the resurrection, or in eternal life?"

"Hardly—at any rate, I am not longing for it. I do not want to awake to another life; I want to sleep peacefully under the trees. I shall fall into dust, and the roots will feed on it, and leaves will grow from it: and I want no other life. I shall live in the sap of the green trees I planted with my own hands. I do not believe in your cruel God who makes His wretched creatures live on to suffer beyond the grave. Mine is a merciful God, who gives rest to animals, trees, and men when they are dead."

"Could there be a more obstinate sinner! You will go to hell-fire—to the tortures of the damned!"

"Show me where the Bible says that God created hell, and I will believe you."

"Oh, you pagan! You will be denying the existence of the devil next," cried the priest in a rage.

"I do deny that God ever created such a devil as you believe in: you invented one for yourselves, and did that badly, for your devil has horns and cloven feet, and such creatures as that eat grass and not men."

"The earth will open and swallow you up like Dathan and Abiram. Do you bring up the little child in this belief?"

"He is taught by the man who has adopted him."

"Who?"

"He whom the child calls father."

"And what is his name?"

"Michael."

"What is his surname?"

"I never asked him."

"What! you never asked his name? What do you know of him?"

"I know he is an honest man, and loves Noemi."

"But what is he? A gentleman, a peasant, a workman, a sailor, or a smuggler?"

"He is a poor man, suited to us."

"And what else? I must know, for it is part of my duty. What faith does he confess? Is he Papist, Calvinist, Lutheran, Socinian, or perhaps a Jew?"

"I have not troubled myself about it."

"Do you keep the fasts of the Church?"

"Once for two years I never touched meat—because I had none."

"Who baptized the child?"

"God—with a shower of rain, while He sat on high on His rainbow throne."

"Oh, you heathen!"

"Why heathen?" asked Therese, bitterly. "God's hand was heavy on me; from the height of bliss I fell into the deepest misery. One day made me a widow and a beggar. I did not deny God, nor cast His gift of life away. I came to this desert, sought God and found Him here. My God requires no sacrifice of song and bell, only a devout heart. I do my penance, not by telling my beads, but by work. Men left me nothing in the world, and I formed a blooming garden from a desert wilderness. All deceived, robbed, and scorned me; the tribunal condemned me, my friends defrauded me, the Church despised me, and yet I did not hate my kind. I am the refuge of the stranger and the destitute; I feed and heal those who come to me for aid, and sleep with open doors winter and summer; I fear no one. Oh, sir, I am no heathen!"

"What sort of rubbish you talk, you chattering woman! I never asked you all that, but I ask you about the man who lives in this hut, whether he is a Christian or a heretic, and why the child is not baptized? It is impossible that you should not know his name."

"Be it so; I will not tell a lie. I know his name, but nothing more. His life may have secrets in it, as mine had: he may have good reasons for hiding himself. But I know him only as a kind good man, and harbor no suspicions of him. Those were 'friends' who took my all from me, noblemen of high station, who left me nothing but my weeping child. I brought up the little child, and when she was my only treasure, my life, my all, I gave her to a man of whom I knew only that he loved her and she loved him. Is not that to have faith in God?"

"Don't talk to me of faith. For such a belief as that, witches in the good old time were brought to the stake and burned, all over the Christian world."

"It is lucky that I possess this island by right of a Turkish firman."

"A Turkish firman!" cried the dean, in astonishment. "And who procured it for you?"

"The man whose name you want to know."

"And I will know it on the spot, and in a summary way. I shall call the sacristan and the acolyte in, make them push away the bed, and go in at that door, which I see has no lock."

Timar heard every word in the next room. The blood rushed to his head at the thought that the ecclesiastical dignitary would walk in and exclaim, "Aha! it is you, Herr Privy Councilor Michael von Levetinczy!"

The dean opened the outer door, and called in his two sturdy companions. Therese, in her extremity, drew the bright Turkish quilt over her up to the chin. "Sir," she said in an imploring tone to the dean, "listen to just one word which will convince you of the strength of my faith, and show you that I am no heathen. Look, this woolen quilt I have over me came from Broussa. A traveling peddler gave it to me. See now, so great is my trust in God that I cover myself with it every night; and yet it is well known that the oriental plague has been raging in Broussa this month past. Which of you has faith enough to dare to touch this bed?"

When she looked round, no one was there to answer. At the discovery that this quilt came from the plague-infected districts round Broussa, all had rushed away, leaving the lonely island and its death-stricken inhabitants as a prey to all the devils of hell. The accursed island was now the richer by one more evil report, which would keep away people who valued their lives.

Therese let out the refugees. Timar kissed her hand and called her "Mother!"

"My son!" whispered Therese, and looked steadily into his eyes. With that look she said to him, "Remember what you have heard. And now it is time to get ready for the journey." Therese spoke of her approaching death as of a journey.

Leaning on Timar and Noemi, she was led out to the green field, and chose the place for her grave.

"Here in the middle," she said to Timar, taking his spade from his hand and marking out the oblong square. "You made a house for Dodi; make mine here. And build no mound over my grave, and plant no cross upon it; plant there neither tree nor shrub; cover it all with fresh turf, so that it may be like the rest. I wish it; so that no one, when in a cheerful mood, may stumble over my grave and be saddened by it."

One evening she fell asleep, to awake no more. And they buried her as she desired. They wrapped her in fine linen, and spread for her a bed of aromatic walnut leaves. And then they made the grave look like the rest, and covered it with turf, so that it was the same as before. When on the next morning Timar and Noemi, leading little Dodi by the hand, went into the field, no sign could be seen on the smooth surface. The autumn spiders had covered it with a silvery pall, and on the glistening veil the dewdrops sparkled in the sun like myriads of diamonds.

But yet they found the spot in this silver-broidered green plain. Almira went in front; at one place she lay down and put her head on the ground: that was the spot.



BOOK FIFTH.—ATHALIE.



CHAPTER I.

THE BROKEN SWORD.

Timar remained on the island till frost covered the green grass—till the leaves fell, and the nightingales and thrushes were silent. Then he made up his mind to return to the world, the world of reality; and he left Noemi behind, alone with her little child on the ownerless island. "But I shall come back this winter"—and with those words he left her.

Noemi did not know what those words betokened at Michael's home. Round the island the Danube was never entirely frozen in the severest winter; the glass never fell much below freezing-point; ivy and laurels could stand the cold with ease. But Michael had severe weather for his journey. On the upper Danube snow had already fallen, and he took a whole week to reach Komorn. He had to wait a whole day before he could cross the river—there was so much ice that it was unsafe to launch a boat. Once he had ventured alone in a small boat across the river in flood; but then Noemi was waiting for him. Now he was going to Timea—to get a divorce from her.

His decision was taken—they must have a divorce. Noemi could not live alone on that desert island. The woman must have justice in return for her fidelity and love: accursed would he be who could find it in his heart to abandon her who had given herself to him body and soul. And then, too, Timea would be happy.

That thought gnawed him—that Timea would be happy. If only he could hate her, if he had a single accusation to bring against her, so as to put her away as one he could despise and forget!

He had to leave his carriage at Uj-Szony, for wheels could not yet pass the ice, so he arrived on foot at home. When he went in, it seemed to him as if Timea were afraid of him; as if the hand she gave him trembled, and her voice too, when she greeted him. This time she did not offer him her white cheek to be kissed.

Timar hastened to his room, on pretense of laying aside his wraps. If only there was some reason for this embarrassment! And another sign had not escaped him—Athalie's expression. In her eyes shone the fire of a diabolical triumph, the light of a malicious joy. How if Athalie knew something?

At table he met the two women again. They all three sat silently together, watching each other. Timea only said to Michael, "This time you have stayed away very long."

Timar would not say, "I shall soon leave you altogether," but he thought it. He had to consult his lawyer first as to a possible ground for a separation. It was impossible to think of one. Only "unconquerable mutual aversion" could be put forward.

But would the wife consent? All depended on her. Timar pondered this question all the afternoon, and told the servants not to tell any one of his return, as he could not see visitors.

Toward evening some one opened the door. Athalie stood before him, with the same spiteful satisfaction shining from her eyes, the same triumphant smile playing round her lips. Michael drew back before her repellent glance.

"What brings you here, Athalie?" he asked, with confusion.

"Well, Herr von Levetinczy, what do you think? Do you not want to know anything from me?"

"What?" he whispered eagerly, shutting the door, and staring at Athalie with wide-opened eyes.

"What do you want to know?" said the beautiful woman, still smiling. "Indeed that is hard to guess. I have been in your house these six years; every year I have seen you return home, and every year with a different expression on your face. At first tormenting jealousy, then easy good-humor, afterward assumed tranquillity, and absorption in business. I studied all these phases. Last year I thought the tragedy was over—you looked like a man who is ready for the grave. But you may be sure that on all this round world there is no one who prays for your life as I do."

Michael frowned, and possibly Athalie understood him.

"No, sir," she repeated, passionately; "for if there is anyone in the world who loves you, they can not possibly wish that you may live long as heartily as I do. Now I see the same look on your face as last year—that is the true one: you would like to hear about Timea?"

"Do you know anything?" asked Timar, eagerly, putting his back against the door as if to keep Athalie a prisoner.

She laughed scornfully; not she but Michael was the prisoner.

"I know much—all," she replied; "enough to bring us all to perdition. Myself and the other, and you too."

Michael's blood froze in his veins. "Tell me all."

"That is what I came for. But listen quietly to the end, that I may tell you things which lead to madness, if not death."

"One word first, is Timea unfaithful?"

"She is, and you will be absolutely convinced of it."

In Timar's heart a nobler feeling arose to protest against this suspicion. "Take care what you say!"

"Your saintly picture, then, came down out of its altar-frame to listen to a report which said that the noble major had fought on her account with some strange officer, and wounded him so badly that his own sword broke in two over the head of his adversary. The picture heard this rumor. Frau Sophie told her, and the eyes of the saintly image shed tears. Perhaps you are a heretic, and do not believe in miraculous tears. But it is true; and Frau Sophie told the noble major next day. Frau Sophie loves to be a go-between; she loves flattery and intrigue. The reported tears had the result that Frau Sophie brought back a box and a letter from the major. In the box were the half-broken blade and the handle of the sword with which the major had fought. It was a souvenir."

"Well, there is nothing wrong in that," said Michael, with affected calm.

"Ah, yes, but the letter!"

"Did you read it?"

"No; but I know what it contained."

"How can you know that?"

"Because the saint replied, and Frau Sophie was the messenger."

"Go on," said Timar.

"Yes, for the story is not nearly finished. The letter was not a scented pink note; it was written on your own desk, sealed with your own seal, and its contents might have been to repulse the major's advances forever and ever. But that was not what it said."

"Who knows?"

"Frau Sophie and I, and you will be a third directly. How unexpectedly you returned to-day!—how can people come at such an inconvenient time? The Danube is full of ice, the ice-flakes lie in heaps, and no living creature can cross. One would think that on such a day the town would be so safely shut off that even a jealous husband, if he were outside, could not get in. How could you come to-day?"

"Do not torture me, Athalie."

"Did you not notice the confusion on your picture's face when surprised by your arrival? Did not her hand tremble in yours? You managed your arrival so badly; Frau Sophie had to go out again to the smart major with the short message—'It can not be to-day.'"

Timar's face was disfigured with rage. Then he sunk back in his chair and said, "I don't believe you."

"You need not do so," said Athalie, with a shrug. "I will only advise you to trust your own eyes. It can not be to-day, because you have come home; but it might be to-morrow. Suppose you went away? You often go in winter to the Platten See, when it is frozen and they begin to fish under the ice. It is capital sport. You might say to-morrow, 'While this cold lasts, I will be off to Fured to see how the fogasch get on,' and then you might shut yourself up in your other house here, and wait till some one taps at your window and says 'Now.' Then you would come back here."

"And I should do that?" exclaimed Timar, shuddering.

Athalie looked him up and down contemptuously. "You are a coward!" and with that she turned to go.

But Michael sprung after her and seized her by the arm.

"Stop! I will take your advice and do what you tell me."

"Then listen to me," said Athalie, and pressed so close to his face that he felt her burning breath.

"When Herr Brazovics built this house, the room in which Timea sleeps was the parlor. Who were his usual guests? Business people, boon companions, merchants, dealers. This room has a hiding-place in the wall above the staircase, where the steps turn, and the inner side makes an angle. Into this hole in the wall it is possible to gain access from outside. There is a closet where old rubbish is kept, which is seldom opened. But even if it stood open it would hardly occur to any one to try the screws of the ventilator one after another. The center screw on the right-hand side is movable. But even if any one drew it out it would tell nothing—it is only a simple peg. But whoever is in possession of a peculiar key, which can be inserted in place of the peg, only requires to press the top of the key, from which wards instantly appear, and by a single turn of the key the cupboard is noiselessly pushed aside. From thence one can enter the hiding-place, which receives light and air from a slit in the roof. This hollow in the wall goes as far as Timea's bedroom, where in former times Herr Brazovics' guests used to pass the night. The concealed passage ends in a glass door which is hidden from the room by a picture. This picture is a mother-of-pearl mosaic representing St. George and the dragon, and appears to be a votive image built into the wall. It has often been proposed to take the picture away, but Timea never would allow it. One of the pieces of mosaic can be slipped aside, and through the blank space everything that passes in the room can be seen and heard."

"What did your father want with such a hiding-place?"

"I think it had to do with his business. He had many affairs with contractors and officials. There was good living to be had at his house, and when he had got his visitors into a good temper, he left them to themselves, slipped into the secret room and listened from thence to their conversation. In this way he obtained much important business information, from which he derived considerable advantage. Once when he had himself taken rather too much at table, he sent me to listen in the passage, and in this way I learned the secret. The key is in my possession. When all Herr Brazovics' property was seized by judicial decree, I could, if I had chosen, have conveyed all his valuables out of the house by this means. But I was too proud to steal."

"And can you get into the bedroom from this hiding-place?"

"The picture of St. George is on hinges, and can be opened like a door."

"So that you can at any time enter Timea's room from that passage?" asked Michael, with an uncontrollable shudder.

Athalie smiled proudly. "I never needed to creep in to her by secret routes. Timea sleeps with open doors, and you know that I can always pass freely through her room. She sleeps so soundly too."

"Give me the key."

Athalie took the puzzle key from her pocket. The lower end was shaped like a screw, only on pressing the handle a key appeared. She showed Timar how to manage it. A voice in his heart—perhaps that of his guardian angel—whispered to Timar to throw this key into the deep well in the yard. But he took no heed of the voice; he only listened to Athalie's whisper in his ear.

"If you leave home to-morrow and come back at the signal, go straight to the hiding-place, and you will learn all you want to know. Will you come?"

"I shall be there."

"Do you generally carry arms?—a pistol or a dagger?—one can never tell what may happen. The picture of St. George opens to the right when you press on a button-shaped handle, and when open it just covers Timea's bed. Do you understand?"

She pressed Michael's hand violently, looking with flaming eyes of rage into his, and added something, but not audibly. Only her lips moved, her teeth chattered, and her eyes rolled—they were soundless words. What could she have said? Timar stared in a dazed way like a sleep-walker, then suddenly raised his head to ask Athalie something. He was alone—only the key grasped in his hand showed that it was no dream.

Never had Timar suffered such torture as in the long hours till the evening of the next day. He followed Athalie's advice, and remained at home till noon. After dinner he said he must go to the Platten See and look after the fishery he had hired.

As he had crossed the ice-floes of the Danube on foot to get to Komorn, he could easily go over again without luggage in the same way. His carriage too was waiting on that side, for it had not yet been able to get across: a road would have to be prepared. Without any interview with his agents, without a glance at his books, he thrust a pile of bank-notes, uncounted, into his pocket, and left the house. At the threshold he met the postman, who brought a registered letter, and demanded a receipt. Michael was in too great haste to go back to his room; he carried pen and ink with him, and laying the receipt on the broad back of the postman, he signed his name to it. Then he looked at the letter. It was from his agent at Rio Janeiro; but without opening it, he put it in his pocket. What did he care for all the flour trade in the world? He kept one room in his house in the Servian Street always heated in winter. This room was entered by a separate staircase, which was kept locked, and was divided by several empty rooms from the offices. Timar reached it unobserved; there he sat down by the window and waited.

The cold north wind outside drew lovely ice-flowers on the window-panes, so that no one could see in or out.

Now he would get what he wanted—the proof of Timea's infidelity. And yet—yet, the thought hurt him so deeply! While his fancy pictured this first private rendezvous between that woman and that man, every drop of blood seemed to rush to the surface and darken the light of his mind.

Shame, jealousy, thirst for vengeance consumed him.

It is hard to endure humiliation, even if some advantage is to be derived from it. He now began to feel what a treasure he possessed in Timea. He had been ready enough to abandon this treasure, or even voluntarily to give it back, but to allow himself to be robbed of it!—the thought enraged him. He struggled with himself as to what he should do. If Athalie's instilled poison had reached his heart, he would have kept to the idea of a murderous rush with a dagger in his hand from behind the picture, so as to kill the faithless wife amidst the hottest caresses of her lover. Athalie panted for Timea's blood; but a husband's revenge seeks a different object—he must have the man's life. Not like an assassin, but face to face—each with a sword in his hand, and then a struggle for life or death. Then, again, cold-blooded calculating reason comes uppermost, and says, "Why shed blood? you want scandal, not revenge; you should rush from your hiding-place, call in the servants, and drive the guilty woman and her seducer from your house. So a reasonable being would act. You are no soldier to seek satisfaction at the point of the sword. Here is the judge, and here the law."

But still he could not forbear from keeping stiletto and pistol ready on the table as Athalie had advised. Who knows what may happen? The moment will decide which gets the upper hand—whether the vengeful assassin, the dishonored husband, or the prudent man of business who would reckon an open scandal to his credit side, as facilitating the desired divorce.

Meanwhile evening had come. One lamp after another was lighted: Herr von Levetinczy paid for the lighting of this street out of his own pocket. The shadows of the passers-by flitted across the frozen panes.

One such figure stopped before the window, and a low knock was heard. It seemed to Timar as if the ice-flowers detached from the glass by the tap were the rustling leaves of a fairy forest, which whispered to him, "Do not go." He hesitated. The tap was repeated.

"I am coming!" he called in a low voice, took pistol and dagger, and crept out of the house.

The whole way he never met a human creature; the streets were already deserted. He only saw a dark shadow flitting on before him, vanishing in the darkness now and then, and at last slipping round the corner. He followed, and found all the doors open; some helping hand had opened the wicket, the house-door, and even the closet in the wall. He could enter without any noise; at the point described he found the movable screw, and put the key in its place; the secret door flew open, and shut behind him.

Timar found himself in the concealed passage—a spy in his own house.

Yes! A spy too! What meanness was there he had not committed? and all this "because a poor fellow remains always only a clerk, and it is the rich for whom life is worth living." Now he has riches and splendor.

Stumbling and feeling about, he groped along the wall, till he came to a part where a feeble light was perceptible. There was the picture of St. George: the light of the lamp shone through the crevices of the mosaic. He found the movable piece of mother-of-pearl, in whose place was a thick sheet of glass. He looked into the room; on the table stood a lamp with a ground glass shade. Timea walked up and down.

An embroidered white dress floated from her waist; her folded hands hung down. The door of the antechamber opened, and Frau Sophie came in; she said something low to Timea, but Timar could hear every whisper. This hole in the wall was like the ear of Dionysius, it caught every sound. "Can he come?" asked Frau Sophie.

"I am waiting for him," said Timea.

Then Frau Sophie went out again. Timea drew from her wardrobe a drawer, and took out a box; she carried it to the table and stood opposite Timar, so that the lamp threw its whole light on her face; the listener could detect the slightest change of expression. Timea opened the box. In it lay a sword-hilt and a broken blade. At first glance the woman started, and her contracted brows betokened horror. Then her face cleared, and took once more, with its meeting eyebrows, the look of a saint's picture, with a black halo round its brow. Tenderness dawned in her melancholy features; she lifted the box and held the sword so near her lips that Timar began to tremble lest she should kiss it. Even the sword was his rival.

The longer Timea looked at it, the brighter grew her eyes. At last she plucked up courage to grasp the hilt; she took it out and made passes in the air with it. . . . If she had known that there was some one near her to whom every stroke was torture—

There was a tap at the door. Timea put down the broken sword hastily, and stammered out a faint "Come in!" But first she pulled down the lace of her sleeves, which had fallen back from her wrist. The major entered. He was a fine man, with a handsome, soldierly face. Timea did not go to meet him, but stood by the lamp; Timar's eyes never left her. Damnation!—what did he see? As the major entered Timea blushed. Yes, the marble statue could glow with sunrise tints, the saint's image could move, and the virginal snow-white adorned itself with roses. The white face had found some one who could set it on fire. Was further proof, were words wanting?

Timar was near bursting from the picture, and, like the dragon before St. George killed it, would have thrown himself between the two before Timea's lips could speak what her face betrayed.

But no. Perhaps he had only dreamed it—Timea's face was colorless as ever. With calm dignity she signed to the major to take a chair; she sat down on a distant sofa, and her look was severe and cold. The major held his shako in one hand, and in the other his sword with its golden knot, and sat as stiff as if he had been in his general's presence. They looked at each other in silence—both struggling with painful thoughts. Timea broke the silence. "Sir, you sent me a curious letter in company with a yet more singular present. It was a broken sword." She opened the box and took out a letter. "Your letter runs thus: 'Gracious lady, I have fought a duel to-day, and my adversary owes it only to the chance that my sword broke that he was not killed on the spot. This duel is intimately connected with most extraordinary circumstances, which concern you, and still more your husband. Allow me a few minutes' interview, that I may tell you what you ought to know.' In this letter the words 'your husband' are twice underlined, and this it was which decided me to give you the opportunity of speaking to me. Speak! In what does your duel concern the private affairs of Herr von Levetinczy? I will listen to you as long as what you have to say treats of him: if you enter on any other subject I will leave you."

The major bowed with grateful fervor. "I will begin then, madame, by telling you that an unknown man has been about in the town, who wears the uniform of a naval officer, and therefore has an entree to military society. He seems to be a man of the world, and is an entertaining companion. Who he may be I know not, for it is not my way to be inquisitive. This man has spent some weeks among us, and seems to have plenty of money. He gave as a reason for being here that he was waiting for Herr von Levetinczy, with whom he had important private affairs to settle. At last he began to annoy us, and looked so mysterious as he asked every day about Herr von Levetinczy, that we fancied he must be an adventurer, and one day we drove him into a corner. We wished to know what manner of man he was, and I undertook the inquiry. When we asked why he did not go to your husband's agents, he said his business was of a very private and delicate nature, which could only be personally discussed. 'Listen,' I said. 'I do not believe that you have any delicate business with Herr von Levetinczy; who you are we do not know, but we do know that he is a man of honor and character, whose position and reputation are above suspicion. He is a man whose private life is blameless, and who can therefore have no reason for private interviews with people of your sort.'"