“Say rather, his widow,” interrupted a solemn voice.

“Ah! uncle!” exclaimed the woman, turning towards an old man who had just emerged from the house.

“Yes, Bertrande,” continued the new-comer, “you must get reconciled to the idea that my nephew has ceased to exist.  I am sure he was not such a fool as to have remained all this time without letting us hear from him.  He was not the fellow to go off at a tangent, on account of a domestic quarrel which you have never vouchsafed to explain to me, and to retain his anger during all these eight years!  Where did he go?  What did he do?  We none of us know, neither you nor I, nor anybody else.  He is assuredly dead, and lies in some graveyard far enough from here.  May God have mercy on his soul!”

Bertrande, weeping, made the sign of the cross, and bowed her head upon her hands.

“Good-bye, Sanxi,” said the uncle, tapping the child’s,’ cheek.  Sanxi turned sulkily away.

There was certainly nothing specially attractive about the uncle:  he belonged to a type which children instinctively dislike, false, crafty, with squinting eyes which continually appeared to contradict his honeyed tongue.

“Bertrande,” he said, “your boy is like his father before him, and only answers my kindness with rudeness.”

“Forgive him,” answered the mother; “he is very young, and does not understand the respect due to his father’s uncle.  I will teach him better things; he will soon learn that he ought to be grateful for the care you have taken of his little property.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the uncle, trying hard to smile.  “I will give you a good account of it, for I shall only have to reckon with you two in future.  Come, my dear, believe me, your husband is really dead, and you have sorrowed quite enough for a good-for-nothing fellow.  Think no more of him.”

So saying, he departed, leaving the poor young woman a prey to the saddest thoughts.

Bertrande de Rolls, naturally gifted with extreme sensibility, on which a careful education had imposed due restraint, had barely completed her twelfth year when she was married to Martin Guerre, a boy of about the same age, such precocious unions being then not uncommon, especially in the Southern provinces.  They were generally settled by considerations of family interest, assisted by the extremely early development habitual to the climate.  The young couple lived for a long time as brother and sister, and Bertrande, thus early familiar with the idea of domestic happiness, bestowed her whole affection on the youth whom she had been taught to regard as her life’s companion.  He was the Alpha and Omega of her existence; all her love, all her thoughts, were given to him, and when their marriage was at length completed, the birth of a son seemed only another link in the already long existing bond of union.  But, as many wise men have remarked, a uniform happiness, which only attaches