"To me it seems as tho we had been married yesterday. 'Twas in the little chapel of Mittau. Listen, Thérèse: I fear at times that I have not made you happy. Am I mistaken? You treat me so distantly."
"I have been—happy," she stammered. "You know that it is not in my nature to be violently so."
"The time of mourning has passed," he said, kissing her slender patrician hands. "Look back no longer. Those who have suffered as much as we have a right to happiness."
Her face flushed as his warmth increased.
"To live and rejoice!" she sighed. "That is not my destiny, nor yours, Louis. We have greater trials in store. I feel their approach. I told you this morning that we have not sufficiently expiated."
"My Thérèse, you who are so good a Christian should not impugn the justice of God. Have you not suffered sufficiently to appease Him? Have you not even the right to breathe? Do you experience no emotion now that your husband is at your side? Were the reasons of state which prescribed our marriage not in accord with your sentiment? Would you choose me again if you were free? Can you not love?"
She blushed to hear these extraordinary words. His transformation was wonderful and seemed to be changing her, the austere Duchess, into a girl of twenty.
"Louis," she answered with noble simplicity, "since the death of my parents, I have loved only you. I fear at times that God will punish this excessive devotion to a creature."
"Cousin, wife," he ardently exclaimed, "'tis God's will that we love each other. You know well that tho at times I seem absorbed and cold, I am never even in thought unfaithful. Have you any complaint, any accusation?"
"I have believed," she replied, "that you did not love me. But I have never doubted you. That would have been unendurable."