vent to their feelings. Bertrande still felt half stupefied; she could
not believe her own eyes and ears, nor realise that she saw again in her
marriage chamber her husband of eight years ago, him for whom she had
wept; whose death she had deplored only a few hours previously. In the
sudden shock caused by so much joy succeeding so much grief, she had not
been able to express what she felt; her confused ideas were difficult to
explain, and she seemed deprived of the powers of speech and reflection.
When she became calmer and more capable of analysing her feelings, she
was astonished not to feel towards her husband the same affection which
had moved her so strongly a few hours before. It was certainly himself,
those were the same features, that was the man to whom she had willingly
given her hand, her heart, herself, and yet now that she saw him again a
cold barrier of shyness, of modesty, seemed to have risen between them.
His first kiss, even, had not made her happy: she blushed and felt
saddened--a curious result of the long absence! She could not define the
changes wrought by years in his appearance: his countenance seemed
harsher, yet the lines of his face, his outer man, his whole personality,
did not seem altered, but his soul had changed its nature, a different
mind looked forth from those eyes. Bertrande knew him for her husband,
and yet she hesitated. Even so Penelope, on the, return of Ulysses,
required a certain proof to confirm the evidence of her eyes, and her
long absent husband had to remind her of secrets known only to herself.

Martin, however, as if he understood Bertrande's feeling and divined some
secret mistrust, used the most tender and affectionate phrases, and even
the very pet names which close intimacy had formerly endeared to them.

"My queen," he said, "my beautiful dove, can you not lay aside your
resentment? Is it still so strong that no submission can soften it?
Cannot my repentance find grace in your eyes? My Bertrande, my Bertha,