ce.

The whole story bore the impress of truth, but when the other
prisoner was asked what he had to say he adhered to his first answers,
maintaining their correctness, and again asserted that he was the real
Martin Guerre, and that the new claimant could only be Arnauld du Thill,
the clever impostor, who was said to resemble himself so much that the
inhabitants of Sagias had agreed in mistaking him for the said Arnauld.

The two Martin Guerres were then confronted without changing the
situation in the least; the first showing the same assurance, the same
bold and confident bearing; while the second, calling on God and men
to bear witness to his sincerity, deplored his misfortune in the most
pathetic terms.

The judge's perplexity was great: the affair became more and more
complicated, the question remained as difficult, as uncertain as ever.
All the appearances and evidences were at variance; probability seemed
to incline towards one, sympathy was more in favour of the other, but
actual proof was still wanting.

At length a member of the Parliament, M. de Coras, proposed as a last
chance before resorting to torture, that final means of examination in
a barbarous age, that Bertrande should be placed between the two rivals,
trusting, he said, that in such a case a woman's instinct would divine
the truth. Consequently the two Martin Guerres were brought before the
Parliament, and a few moments after Bertrande was led in, weak,
pale, hardly able to stand, being worn out by suffering and advanced
pregnancy. Her appearance excited compassion, and all watched anxiously
to see what she would do. She looked at the two men, who had been placed
at different ends of the hall, and turning from him who was nearest to
her, went and knelt silently before the man with the wooden leg; then,
joining her hands as if praying for mercy, she wept bitterly. So simple
and touching an action roused the sympathy of all present; Arnauld du
Thill grew pale, and everyone expected that Martin Guerre, rejoiced at
being vindicated by this public acknowledgment, would raise his wife
and embrace her. But he remained cold and stern, and in a contemptuous
tone--

"Your tears, madame," he said; "they do not move me in the least,
neither can you seek to excuse your credulity by the examples of my
sisters and my uncle. A wife knows her husband more intimately than
his other relations, as you prove by your present action, and if she is
deceived it is be