And now on this island Timar found health and rest.  It became his home, and for the summer months every year he would slip away from Komorn, and no one, not even Timea, guessed his secret.  When he returned Timea’s cold white face was still an unsolved riddle to her husband.  She would greet him kindly, but never was there any token that she loved him.  Timar’s ever-increasing business operations were excuse for his long absences, but all the same the double life he was leading made him ill.  He could not tell Timea of Therese and Noemi, and he could not tell them on the island that he was married.

Timea, on her side, devoted herself more and more to her husband’s business in his absence, and when Major Katschuka once called and asked her if she could not arrange for a divorce, she answered gently, “My husband is the noblest man in the world.  Should I separate from him who has no one but me to love him?  Am I to tell him that I hate him, I who owe everything to him, and who brought him no dowry but a loveless heart?”

Timar learnt from Athalie, who lived in Timea’s house, of this reply, and felt more in despair than ever.  He wanted Timea to be happy, she had never been his wife except in name, for he had been waiting for her love.

And he wanted to go away, and leave all his riches behind, and settle on the island.  Now more than ever was he wanted on the island, for Therese had died of heart failure, and the years had made Noemi a woman.

IV.—­“My Name is Nobody"

It was winter, and Timar had gone off alone to a house that belonged to him near a frozen lake.  He felt the time had come for flight, but whither?

Theodor Krisstyan had turned up again.  In Brazil he had heard a story of Ali Tschorbadschi’s jewels from an old criminal from Turkey, and he had returned to blackmail Timar.  But he did not find him till Timar was at the frozen lake.

Krisstyan’s story was not true.  Timar knew that the accusations were false as he listened to the vagabond’s indictment.  He had not “killed” Timea’s father, nor “stolen” his treasure.  But he had played a false game, and his position was a false one.  Krisstyan demanded a change of raiment, and Timar let him take clothes and shirts.  But at last the blackmailer’s demands became too insolent, and Timar drove him out of the house.

And now it seemed to Timar that his own career was finished.  This ruffian Krisstyan could expose the foundation of his wealth, and how could he live discredited before the world?

On the frozen water there were great fissures between the blocks of ice.  Within the waves of the lake death would come quickly.  Timar walked out on the ice, and there before him the head of Theodor Krisstyan rose in the water and then sank.  The spy had not known the treachery of the fissures.

Timar fled to the ownerless island, and when the corpse of Krisstyan was discovered, in an advanced stage of decomposition, Timea declared she recognized her husband’s clothes.