Timea gave her hand to Timar, and said in a low, firm voice, “I accept you as my husband, and will be a faithful and obedient wife.”

This man had always been so good to her.  He had never made sport of her nor flattered her, and he had saved her life on the Danube when the St. Barbara was sinking.  He had given her all her heart could desire except one thing, and that belonged to another.

III.—­The Ownerless Island

On his betrothal to Timea a great burden was lifted from the soul of Timar.  Since the day when the treasure of Ali Tschorbadschi had enabled him to achieve power and riches, Timar had been haunted by the voice of self-accusation; “This money does not belong to you—­it was the property of an orphan.  You are a man of gold!  You are a thief!”

But now the defrauded orphan had received back her property.  Only Timar forgot that he had demanded in exchange the girl’s heart.

Timea promised to be a faithful and obedient wife, but on the wedding-day when Timar said, “Do you love me?” she only opened wide her eyes, and asked, “What is love?”

Timar found he had married a marble statue; and that all his riches would not buy his wife’s love.  He became wretched, conscious that his wife was unhappy, that he was the author of their mutual misery.

Then, in the early summer, Timar went off from Komorn to shoot water-fowl.  He meant to go to the ownerless island at Ostrova—­it was three years since that former visit.

Therese and Noemi welcomed him cordially at the island, and Timar forgot his troubles when he was with them.  Therese told him her story; how her husband, ruined by the father of Theodor Krisstyan and by Athanas Brazovics, had committed suicide, and how, forsaken and friendless, she had brought her child to this island, which neither Austria nor Turkey claimed, and where no tax-collector called.  With her own hands she had turned the wilderness into a paradise, and the only fear she had was that Theodor Krisstyan, who had discovered her retreat, might reveal it to the Turkish government.

Therese had no money and no use for it, but she exchanged fruit and honey for grain, salt, clothes, and hardware, and the people with whom she bartered were not inclined to gossip about her affairs.

So no news concerning the island ever went to Vienna, Komorn, or Constantinople, and the fact of Timar’s great prosperity had not reached the islanders.  He was welcomed as a hard-working man, and Therese did not know that Timar had been powerful enough to get a ninety years’ lease of the island from both Turkish and Austrian governments; perhaps no very difficult matter, as the existence of the island was unknown, and there were fees to be paid over the concession.

When he told her what he had done, Noemi threw her arms round his neck.

Theodor Krisstyan was furious, but Timar procured him a post in Brazil, and for a long time the disreputable spy was too far off to be troublesome.