"Riches and luxury surround you," continued the major, boldly; "but if that is true—which on my honor I never asked, and which, when told me, I answered with the lie direct, and a blow in the face—if it is true that you suffer and are unhappy, I should not be a man if I had not the courage to say to you, gracious lady, there is another who suffers like you. Throw far from you these unlucky riches; make an end of this suffering of two people, who in the next world can accuse a third person in the sight of God of being the cause of it: consent to a divorce!"
Timéa pressed both hands to her breast, and looked up like a martyr on her road to the stake: all her anguish was aroused at this moment.
When Timar saw her so, he struck his forehead with his fist, and turned his face from the Judas-hole through which he had been looking. For the next few moments he saw and heard no more. When torturing curiosity drew him again to the spot of light, and he cast a look into the room, he no longer saw a martyr before him. Timéa's face was calm.
"Sir," she said gently to the major, "that I should have heard you to the end is a proof of my respect. Leave me this feeling, and never again ask me what you did to-day. I call the whole world to witness whether I have ever complained by word or tear. Of whom should I complain? Of my husband, who is the noblest and best man in the world? Of him who saved the strange child's life? who thrice defied death in the waters' depths for my sake? When I was a despised and derided creature he protected me; for my sake he visited the house of his deadly enemy, that he might watch over me. When I had become a homeless beggar he gave me—a servant—his hand, his riches, and made me mistress of his house. And when he offered me his hand he meant it; he was not deceiving me." As she spoke, Timéa went to a closet and opened the doors. "Look here, sir," she said, as she spread out before the major the train of a dress hanging within. "Do you recognize this dress? It is the one I worked. You saw it for weeks while I worked at it. Every stitch is a buried dream, a sad memory to me. They told me it was to be my wedding-gown; and when it was finished, they said, 'Take it off: it is for another bride.' Ah! sir, that was a mortal stab to my heart: I have been sore from that incurable wound all these years. And now should I separate myself from the good man who never courted me, as a child, with flatteries, to turn my head, but remained respectfully in the distance, and waited till others had trodden me under foot to raise me to himself, and has never ceased, with superhuman, angelic patience, his endeavors to cure my wound and to share my sorrow with me? I should separate from the man who has no one but me to love him, to whom I am a whole world, the only being that ties him to life, or at whose coming his gloomy face is cheered? I should leave a man whom every one honors and loves? Tell him that I hate him—I, who owe everything to him, and who brought him no dowry but a sick and loveless heart?"
The major hid his face at these words of the passionate and excited woman. And that other man behind the picture of St. George—must he not feel like the dragon when the knight thrust his spear into him?
"But, sir," continued Timéa, whose lovely face was illumined by the irresistible charm of womanly dignity, "even if Timar were the exact opposite of all that he is known to be—if he were a ruined man, a beggar—I would not leave him—then least of all. If disgrace covered his name, I would not discard that name; I would share his shame, as I have shared his success. If the whole world despised him, I should still owe him eternal gratitude; if he were exiled, I would follow him into banishment, and live with him in the woods if he were a robber. If he wished to take his life, I would die with him—"
(What is that? Is it the dragon that weeps there in the picture?)
"And, sir, if even the bitterest, cruelest insult of all to a woman were inflicted on me—if I learned that my husband was unfaithful, to me—that he loved another—I would say, 'God bless her who gave him the happiness of which I have robbed him;' and I would not even then divorce him—I would not do it if he wished it. I will never separate from him, for I know what is due to my oath and the salvation of my soul!"
And the major too sobbed—he too.
Timéa stopped to recover her composure. Then in a soft and gentle voice she continued: "And now leave me forever. The stab you gave my heart years ago is healed by this sword-stroke: I keep this broken blade as a remembrance. As often as my eye falls on it, I will think that you are a brave soul, and it will be balm to me. And because for years you have never spoken to me nor approached me, I will forgive your having come and spoken to me now." . . .