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 G.o.d'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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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.