Char. Your father's hand?
Ber. Doubt flies from it, although
The vein is alien, sir. It is his hand.
And, I do think, his heart, wherein, my lord,
Your gentleness to me, like creeping rain,
Has moistened love's dry root, whose pent-up bloom
Is by that nurture freed, and magical
Now glows before us.
Char. This I would believe. [Starts off right]
Vigard and Biondel must have this news
From my slow lips, lest with the sudden truth
They strike ablaze. They have their mother's fire.
Albanian Gartha was not one to die
And leave her sons no part in her wild race. [Exit]
Ber. You are not Gartha's daughter?
Ard. No, my lord.
Claris of Corinth bore me, and my flame
Is joy, not anger. O, this miracle
You've wrought for me!
Ber. I wrought?
Ard. 'Tis no less strange
When God through his bare tool reveals his hand,
Than when invisible his power stirs
And makes a chasm in sense. So when you stood
Before me, Bertrand's self, with yet the voice,
The eyes, the heart of Vairdelan, I knew
That was my miracle. O Heaven-sign
At which my world grew blithe and shook May-boughs
With birds in every branch!
Ber. You've no more fear
For Charilus?
Ard. None, none.
Nor for myself.
Ber. Yourself?