When they arrived at Komorn, Frau Sophie informed them that she had turned gray with loneliness. Gray indeed! She had been very happy—being able to go about all day from house to house to gossip to her heart's content. Timar felt a painful anxiety. Home is either a heaven or a hell. Now at last he would know what lay behind the marble coldness of this silent face.
As he entered the room with his wife, she handed him the key of his desk. Michael knew she had opened it to get out the contract.
This writing-desk was an old and elaborate piece of furniture, whose upper part was closed by a rolled falling cover, under which were drawers of various sizes. In the large drawer lay the contracts, in the small ones notes and valuables; the lock was a puzzle one, which you might vainly turn if you did not know its secret.
Timéa was in the secret, and could have access to all the drawers. With an uneasily beating heart Timar drew out the drawer where those jewels were kept which it had been unadvisable to place on the market. These gems have their own experts, who recognize by certain marks where this stone or that gem came from; and then follows the question, how did he get it? Only the third generation from the finder can venture to show it, as to him it is all one in what way his grandfather came into its possession.
If Timéa had been inquisitive enough to open that drawer she must have seen these gems. And if so, one among them, the diamond locket with the portrait which is so like her, must have been recognized by her. It is her mother's picture, and then she must know all. She knows that Timar has received her father's treasures; it is hard to believe he came by them honestly. And by that dark, perhaps criminal road, they would lead to the fabulous riches which gained her hand for Timar, while he played the generous friend to her whom he had robbed. She may even think worse things of him than are true. Her father's mysterious death, his secret burial, might awake in her the suspicion that Timar had a hand in it.
These doubts were unbearable. Timar must set them at rest, and call yet one more falsehood to his aid. He took out the medallion and went with it to Timéa. "Dear Timéa," he said, sitting down beside his wife, "I have been living a long time in Turkey. What I did there you will learn later on. When I was in Scutari an Armenian jeweler offered me a diamond-framed picture, which is very like you. I bought it, and have brought you the ornament."
When Timéa saw the portrait her face changed in an instant. An emotion which could neither be assumed nor concealed was visible in her sculptured features; she seized the picture with both hands and pressed it eagerly to her lips; her eyes filled with tears. This was true feeling; Timéa's face began to live.
Michael was saved. The girl, overpowered by her long-suppressed feelings, began to sob violently. Athalie heard and came in; she was surprised—she had never known Timéa to sob. But when she saw Athalie she ran toward her like a child, and cried, in a tone of mingled laughter and tears, "See, see! my mother! It is my mother's picture. . . . He has brought it to me!"
And then she hastened back to Michael, put both her arms round his neck, and whispered in a broken voice, "Thanks, oh, a thousand thanks!"
It seemed to Timar as if the time had come to kiss these grateful lips, and to kiss them on and on.