causes them to be astonished that so much joy can be contained,
without anything bursting. Bertha and Jehan would have wished in this
night to have finished their days, and thought, from the excessive
languor which flowed in their veins, that love had resolved to bear
them away on his wings with the kiss of death; but they held out in
spite of these numerous multiplications.

On the morrow, as the return of Monsieur Imbert de Bastarnay was close
at hand, the lady Sylvia was compelled to depart. The poor girl left
her cousin, covering her with tears and with kisses; it was always her
last, but the last lasted till evening. Then he was compelled to leave
her, and he did leave her although the blood of his heart congealed,
like the fallen wax of a Paschal candle. According to his promise, he
wended his way towards Marmoustier, which he entered towards the
eleventh hour of the day, and was placed among the novices.
Monseigneur de Bastarnay was informed that Sylvia had returned to the
Lord which is the signification of le Seigneur in the English
language; and therefore in this Bertha did not lie.

The joy of her husband, when he saw Bertha without her waistband--she
could not wear it, so much had she increased in size--commenced the
martyrdom of this poor woman, who did not know how to deceive, and
who, at each false word, went to her Prie-Dieu, wept her blood away
from her eyes in tears, burst into prayers, and recommended herself to
the graces of Messieurs the Saints in paradise. It happened that she
cried so loudly to God that He heard her, because He hears everything;
He hears the stones that roll beneath the waters, the poor who groan,
and the flies who wing their way through the air. It is well that you
should know this, otherwise you would not believe in what happened.
God commanded the archangel Michael to make for this penitent a hell