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Exhausted by her suffering, which had caused a premature confinement, Bertrande lay on her couch of pain, and besought pardon from him whom she had innocently wronged, entreating him also to pray for her soul. Martin Guerre, sitting at her bedside, extended his hand and blessed her. She took his hand and held it to her lips; she could no longer speak.
It was midnight before the husband and wife were alone and able to give 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.
This court decided that the case required more careful consideration than had yet been given to it, and began by ordering Arnauld du Thill to be confronted with Pierre Guerre and Bertrande de Rolls. Who can say what feelings animate a man who, already once condemned, finds himself subjected to a second trial?
Bertrande hastened towards her in astonishment, followed by her husband, but when near enough to speak she could only answer with inarticulate sounds, pointing with terror to the courtyard of the house. They looked in this direction, and saw a man standing at the threshold; they approached him. He stepped forward, as if to place himself between them.
She could even appear faithful while really guilty; she could seem constant, though really fickle; and she could, under a veil of mystery, at once reconcile her honour, her duty perhaps even her love." "What on earth do you mean?" cried Bertrande, wringing her hands in terror. "That you are countenancing an impostor who is not your husband."
I don't owe you anything." "What!" exclaimed the astonished Martin, "but the whole income?" "Was well and properly employed in the maintenance of your wife and child." "What! a thousand livres for that? And Bertrande lived alone, so quietly and simply! Nonsense! it is impossible." "Any surplus," resumed the old man, quite unmoved, "any surplus went to pay the expenses of seed-time and harvest."
Feeling as if the ground were passing from beneath her, Bertrande staggered, and caught at the nearest piece of furniture to save herself from falling; then, collecting all her strength to meet this extraordinary attack, she faced the old man. "What! my husband, your nephew, an impostor!" "Don't you know it?"
"Oh! have pity, have mercy, and spare me!" "On one condition." "What is it?" "Come with me." Terrified almost out of her mind, Rose allowed him to lead her away. Bertrande had just finished her evening prayer, and was preparing for bed, when she was startled by several knocks at her door.
So much the Spaniard told me. Acting on this information, I went on pretence of business to the village he named, I questioned the inhabitants, and this is what I learned." "Well?" said Bertrande, pale, and gasping with emotion. "I learned that the wounded man had his leg taken off, and, as the surgeon predicted, he must have died in a few hours, for he was never seen again."
After his nephew's departure it seemed only natural that he should pose as the family guardian, and he applied himself to the task of increasing the little income, but without considering himself bound to give any account to Bertrande. So, once persuaded that Martin was no more, he was apparently not unwilling to prolong a situation so much to his own advantage.
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