"Bring him to me. Let him come."
Marion left, and Bertha returned to her old equerry:
"You will not forget my recommendations regarding the sum that I destine for the widows and orphans—whom the savage soldiers of the Grand Monarch will have made."
"Mademoiselle's wishes shall be carried out," answered the old man, bowing.
He left the room; almost immediately after Nominoë entered the hall. His clothes were dusty; he threw his wallet and traveling stick upon an arm chair. He stood alone before Bertha.
CHAPTER X.
UNITED.
Mademoiselle Plouernel stepped buoyantly towards Nominoë, reached out her hand to him, and said delightedly:
"At last I see you again!"
"How beautiful she is! My God, how beautiful she is!" the young man murmured involuntarily, standing in ecstasy before the young girl whose hand he held in his own. Never before, not even at The Hague, was he dazzled by the radiant beauty of Bertha as now. For a moment he remained as if in a transport—enraptured—in ecstatic adoration.
Soon the intoxicating emotion was succeeded by a bitter presentiment in Nominoë's heart. He knew himself to be passionately loved by Bertha. She must have suffered a thousand cruel pangs at the thought of the perils that he ran since they last met, above all at the thought of the wreck of the marriage which she had so long looked forward to. And yet, so far from finding her dejected, pale, emaciated by grief and despair, she stood there blooming with freshness and beauty. Love has a penetrating eye. Mademoiselle Plouernel divined the secret thought of Nominoë, and addressing him with a charming smile, said: