"Oh, joy in heaven!" cried the young man, falling upon his knees and clasping his hands before Bertha. "You love me! I am not the sport of a dream! You love me?"
"Yes, I love you; I tell you so without blushing, because I hold you worthy of such a love, Nominoë! 'Joy in heaven!' did you say? Oh, you spoke truly. Our joys will be celestial—our future looks dark here on earth—but yonder—yonder, where, according to the belief of your fathers, we shall live anew, body and soul—yonder our future will shine in splendor. You seek to fathom the meaning of my words, Nominoë! Rise, sit down here beside me, listen to me! You shall be made acquainted with all my thoughts."
Racked by doubt and hope, intoxicated by the confession of Mademoiselle Plouernel, discouraged, almost frightened by her last words, Nominoë rose silently, approached again the moss-covered bench, and sat down beside Bertha, who proceeded:
"The first time I saw you was in the midst of a storm that threatened to engulf our vessel, and dash it against the coast of Holland. I preserved my self-possession despite the threatening danger—because I do not fear death. Thus I could follow your manoeuvres with inexpressible interest. I admired your devotion. I was touched by your youth. Shortly after, as our vessel rode safely at anchor, I had the opportunity of appreciating your nature and the dignity of your character by the answer you gave to the offer of remuneration made to you by the Abbot, our traveling companion. I then thought I would never see you again, Nominoë! Nevertheless, I felt happy at being bound to you by the bond of gratitude. Since that day your image took its place in my heart!"
"Oh! Since that day also, your image has been ever present in my thoughts. How was I ever to forget the moment when, as I approached your brigantine in the hope of saving it, I saw you at the poop of the vessel so beautiful, so calm, smiling at the tempest! It was to me a dazzling vision! Alas! often did the vision reappear in my dreams! Finally, when on that same day, I read in your eyes the grief it caused you to see the humiliation that I had to suffer—I divined the benignity and the nobility of your heart! Your remembrance became still dearer to me! Oh! I loved you passionately!"
"I believe you, Nominoë! Why should not the feelings that you experienced have been as strong as the feelings experienced by myself? Then came that unhappy, that frightful day when, wounded by gunshots, you came near perishing in order to shelter me from dishonor," continued Mademoiselle Plouernel with a tremulous voice and eyes moist with tears; "in short, the day when I learned—Oh, providential coincidence!—that my savior belonged to that vassal family whose history I knew. The discovery, coming, as it did, upon the heels of the shocks of that same day, quite overthrew me; it dealt me a last blow. Nevertheless, when, after Monsieur Serdan had furnished us with the conveyances to leave The Hague, he gave me warrant to entertain the hope that your wounds would not prove fatal, and with a few heartfelt words praised you in a way that filled my soul with bliss, I recovered heart. I swear to you, Nominoë, had I not at that moment felt prostrated by the first symptoms of a grave illness that was to prey upon me for a long time; had my mind not been upset and my strength exhausted by so many violent emotions, I would not have left The Hague that night without first seeing you—without expressing to you all the gratitude and admiration that your generous conduct evoked in me. But all the springs of my spirit had snapped; I could only weep—sterile, cowardly tears!—in that I left you in that city; dying, perhaps; a victim of your devotion to me! We departed for France. The fatigues of the journey, coupled with a slow fever, left me in an almost desperate condition when we arrived at Versailles. For two or three months I hovered between life and death. Thanks to the care of able physicians and to my youth, I finally emerged from the desperate state in which I languished. It seemed to me that I awoke from a frightful dream—by little and little the events in The Hague and of my return to France came back to me. Those recollections, rendered as they were doubly dear to my heart by our separation, awoke within my breast a sentiment towards you more tender than mere gratitude. I loved you, Nominoë! In doing so I yielded above all to the irresistible attraction of the thought that I loved in you the descendant of that family that had so long been persecuted by my own. My love became an atonement for the past! I saw something providential in the events that had thrown us together! Did I not owe life, honor, to you, the descendant of those vassals who had themselves been so often smitten in their lives, in the honor of their daughters and of their wives, by my ancestors! Oh! Nominoë, if you only knew with what fervor I thanked God for having inspired me with the desire of taking for my husband, I, a daughter of Neroweg the Frank, a son of Joel the Gaul! Was not the atonement of the daughter of the oppressors a just one to the son of the oppressed? Was not the marriage, that would consecrate the union of the conquered race with the conqueror, a natural one? Was not that love celestial that had its source in justice? I felt happy at the thought of that fusion of our two races!"
Words are impotent to express certain emotions. His visage bathed in tears, Nominoë remained silent. Suddenly a voice from afar, fresh and pure—the voice of a young girl—began to sing or rather to recite to a slow and melancholy rythm, one of those bardings or national Breton songs, some of which, popular still in these days, go back to the oldest possible antiquity. The singer was taking her sheep to pasture upon one of the shaded slopes of the ridge, at the crest of which rose the ruins of the feudal dungeon. The sweet voice, thinned by the distance, seemed to descend from the skies. At the sound of the first lines of the song, despite his emotion, Nominoë felt thrilled; he listened a moment, and said to Mademoiselle Plouernel:
"Strange coincidence! That chant, traditional in Brittany for centuries and centuries, recounts the death of a young girl of our family in the days of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar."
"The death of a young girl!" echoed Mademoiselle Plouernel with an indefinable smile.
The last couplet of the song barely reached the ears of Bertha and Nominoë because the shepherdess was climbing the slope as she sang, and soon her voice was lost in space. Mademoiselle Plouernel had listened to the chant with profound attention, clasped hands, and eyes raised heavenward.