Bertha relapsed into a pensive mood, and then asked:
"Tell me, Nominoë, are the sacred stones of Karnak, mentioned in the ballad of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the same that are seen to this day?"
"They are the same; and already in the days of Julius Caesar their origin was lost in the night of remote ages."
"I visited those stones during my recent trip to Mezlean. They are gigantic; their colossal avenues extend to the very edge of the sea, which breaks at their feet! Their granite ribs have defied the ages! They are at this hour what they were on the day when your ancestress offered her innocent life to the gods, in order to appease their anger, and save Gaul from the foreign invader! Sublime devotion! Its memory is perpetuated down to our own days! Oh, Nominoë! My proud family boasts of the antiquity of its stock and the nobility of its origin! How much older and truly noble is yours! It is you, my friend, it is you who would _stoop low_, as they say, if this union, that I have dreamed about--"
And answering a gesture of the young man, Bertha added:
"Did I not tell you, Nominoë--our joys will be celestial, not terrestrial! Providence so wills it--you must submit to the providential decree. We must know how to resign ourselves, my friend."
"Bertha, I implore you, have mercy upon my feverish brain. What is happening to me hurls me into a sort of vertigo. I know not whether I am dreaming, or whether I am awake. I doubt what I see, what I hear, what I feel! A moment ago you pronounced the word marriage. Despite myself I yielded to the intoxication of an insane hope. Oh, truly insane!"