"Is this your real meaning, sir?"
"What motive should I have at this moment for jesting with you? You attempted my life, and I must secure myself. I can not send you out of the world—my conscience forbids it—so I must try to make an honest man of you in the interest of my own safety. If you are in good circumstances, I shall have nothing to fear. Now you can understand my course of action. As a proof that my offer is in earnest, take my pocket-book. You will find in it the necessary journey expenses to Trieste, and probably as much as what you owe to Scaramelli. At Trieste you will find a letter which gives you further directions. And now we will part—one to the right, and the other to the left."
Theodor's hand shook as he received the pocket-book. Michael lifted his pierced hat from the ground. "And you can look on these shots just as you like. If they were the attack of an assassin, you have every reason not to approach me in any region within reach of the law; but if they were the shots of an insulted gentleman, you know that at our next meeting it is my turn to shoot."
Theodor Krisstyan bared his breast, and exclaimed passionately, "Shoot me if ever I come in sight of you again! Shoot me like a mad dog!" He raised the discharged pistol, and pressed it into Timar's hand. "Shoot me with my own pistol it you ever meet me in this world! Do not ask, say not a word, but kill me!"
He insisted on Michael's taking the pistol, and putting it in his pocket.
"Farewell!" said Timar, and then he left him and went on his way.
Theodor stood still looking after him. Then he ran, and caught him up. "Sir, one word—you have made a new man of me—allow me, if ever I write to you, to begin with the words, 'My Father.' In those words once lay for me shame and horror; let me find in them henceforth a fountain of trust and happiness—my father, my father!"
He kissed Michael's hand with impassioned warmth, rushed away, threw himself down on the grass behind the first bush that hid him from Timar's eyes, and wept—real, true tears.
Poor little Noémi stood for an hour under the acacia-tree where she had taken leave of Michael. Therese, as she stayed out so long, had gone to seek her, and now sat beside her daughter on the grass. Not to be idle, she had brought out her knitting.