When, finally, he told her of the awful night in which the adventurer appeared at his lonely castle, of how despair had led him to the brink of the grave, and how, as he looked down into the waves, instead of his own face mirrored in the water, the dead face of his enemy emerged from the depths, and God's hand suddenly closed before his eyes the opening of the icy tomb—oh! how passionately Noémi pressed him to her breast, as if to hold him back from falling into the grave.
"Now you know what I have left behind in the world, and what I have found here. Can you forgive me for what you have suffered and for all my offenses against you?" Noémi's tears and kisses replied.
The confession had lasted long: the short summer's night was over, and it was daylight when Michael concluded the story of his life.
He was forgiven. "My guilt is obliterated," said Michael. "Timéa had recovered her freedom and her wealth. The vagabond had on my clothes and carried my pocket-book away with him: they will bury his body as if it were mine, and Timéa is a widow. I have given you my soul, and you have accepted it. Now all is equal."
Noémi took Michael's arm and led him into the room where the boy was asleep. He awoke under their kisses, opened his eyes, and when he saw that it was morning, he knelt up in his little bed, and with folded hands offered his morning prayer: "Dear Lord, bless my good father and my dear mother!"
"All is forgiven, Michael! . . . One angel prays for you beside your bed, the other at your grave, that you may be happy."
Noémi dressed little Dodi, and then her eyes rested thoughtfully on Michael. She wanted time to realize all she had heard from him, but women have quick perceptions.
Suddenly Noémi said to her husband, "Michael, you have still one duty to fulfill in the world."
"What duty, and to whom?"
"You owe Timéa the secret that other woman revealed to you."