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I have an idea; I will fell the dead walnuts and build of them a little house for Dodi." Therese clasped her hands in astonishment. But Noémi's answer was to kiss her little Dodi and say to him, "Dost thou hear?" Michael interpreted the wonder on Therese's face as incredulity.
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 Noémi's love. One bud after another opened on the rose-tree. Timar did nothing but watch the development and blossoming of these rosebuds.
Jeanne, her head aflame, her heart and her pulse in a tumult, went on without answering. It seemed to her she was being borne through the darkness towards him, on the tide of an unknown sea. Towards him, towards him. Towards his God also? The mighty wind confused her, roaring above and around her. Noemi's words, Carlino's words were rending her soul in a violent struggle. Towards his God also?
For a moment there was a deep silence, the voice which had just ceased seemed to me to ring and echo around the dim, still room. The sense of a great shame was upon me; I dared not lift my eyes to Noemi's face. Suddenly a faint cry startled me. She stretched her arms towards me and fell on her knees at my feet. "O monsieur! Antoine is lost! My heart is dead!"
Carlino called to them to stop there if they liked, but to pretend to be engaged in an interesting conversation. Noemi answered her friend with a "yes" so timid and soft that Jeanne understood all. Maria Selva believed that her monk, this Don Clemente, was Piero Maironi. "Oh, God!" she exclaimed, tightly pressing Noemi's hand. "But did she really say so?" "Say what?" "What indeed!" Good heavens!
He often caught himself on the point of betraying his thoughts; once as he sat at table the words all but escaped him, "Look! those are the same apples which grow on Noémi's island." "When Noémi had a headache, it went away if I laid my hand on her forehead." And if he looked at Timéa's pet white cat, the exclamation hovered on his lips, "Narcissa, where did you leave your mistress, eh?"
His recovery hung on perfect tranquillity; any violent excitement would kill him. Noémi stayed all night by Timar's sick-bed: she never even went out once to see little Dodi; he slept in the outer room with Frau Therese. On the morning of the fourteenth day, while Michael lay sound asleep, Therese whispered in Noémi's car, "Little Dodi is very ill." The child now! Poor Noémi!
For her own peace of mind, as well as for Don Clemente's, her brother-in-law would not wish Jeanne Dessalle to return to Subiaco. It was Noemi's mission to convince her of the propriety of such a renunciation. Selva was restored to health, and had himself offered to come and meet his sister-in-law, would even come to Belgium, were it necessary.
A year later he could address a birthday letter to his mother in beautiful copper-plate on white paper it was a greater achievement than Cleopatra's Needle, covered with hieroglyphics. When Dodi's first letter was fluttering in Noémi's hand, she said, with a tear in her eye, to Michael, "He will write like you." "Where have you seen my handwriting?" asked Michael, in surprise.
I have heaped gold and diamonds upon her, but she shall not have a word from you; that is one of my own treasures. I brought Noémi nothing of Timéa's, and I will not give Timéa anything of Noémi's. You shall not write her a word." "Well, then," said Noémi, smiling, "I know another who can write to Timéa. Dodi shall write the letter."
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