eached her from the man she loved so much.
She spoke often of him to the uncomprehending child, she sought to
discover his features in those of her boy, but though she endeavoured to
concentrate her whole affection on her son, she realised that there is
suffering which maternal love cannot console, and tears which it cannot
dry. Consumed by the strength of the sorrow which ever dwelt in her
heart, the poor woman was slowly wasting, worn out by the regrets of the
past, the vain desires of the present, and the dreary prospect of the
future. And now she had been openly insulted, her feelings as a mother
wounded to the quirk; and her husband's uncle, instead of defending and
consoling her, could give only cold counsel and unsympathetic words!

Pierre Guerre, indeed, was simply a thorough egotist. In his youth he
had been charged with usury; no one knew by what means he had become
rich, for the little drapery trade which he called his profession did not
appear to be very profitable.

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.

Night was fast coming on; in the dim twilight distant objects became
confused and indistinct. It was the end of autumn, that melancholy
season which suggests so many gloomy thoughts and recalls so many
blighted hopes. The child had gone into the house. Bertrande, still
sitting at the door, resting her forehead on her hand, thought sadly of
her uncle's words; recalling in imagination the past scenes which they
suggested, the time of their childhood, when, married so young, they were
as yet only playmates, prefacing the graver duties of life by innocent
pleasures; then of the love which grew with their increasing age; then of
how this love became altered, changing on her side into passion, on his
into indifference. She tried to recollect him as he had been on the eve
of his departure, young and handsome, carrying his head high, coming home
from a fatiguing hunt and sitting by his son's cradle; and then also she
remembered bitterly the jealous suspicions she had conceived, the anger
with which she had allowed them to escape her, the consequent quarrel,
followed by the disappearanc