BUT the love which had taken such despotic possession of Bertha’s nature could not be by any sudden means. When she recovered her health and was able to resume her habits, it blazed out again like a fire, momentarily , which has gained new strength in its . It dismayed her to think of her extreme loneliness; Edward was now her only mainstay and her only hope. She no longer sought to deny that his love was unlike hers; but his coldness was not always apparent; wishing to find a response to her ardour, she closed her eyes to all that did not too readily itself. She had such a consuming desire to find in Edward the lover of her dreams, that for certain periods she was indeed able to live in a fool’s paradise, which was none the less grateful because at the bottom of her heart she had an aching suspicion of its true character.  
But it seemed that the more Bertha for her husband’s love, the more frequent became their differences. As time went on the calm between the storms was shorter, and every quarrel left its mark, and made Bertha more to . Realizing, finally, that Edward could not answer her of affection, she became ten times more ; even the little tendernesses which at the beginning of her married life would have overjoyed her, now too much resembled alms thrown to an beggar, to be received with anything but . Their proved that it does not require two persons to make a quarrel. Edward was a model of good-temper, and his was . However cross Bertha was, Edward never lost his . He imagined that she was troubling over the loss of her child, and that her health was not restored: it had been his experience, especially with cows, that a difficult frequently gave rise to some temporary change in , so that the most animal in the world would suddenly develop an unexpected viciousness. He never tried to understand Bertha’s moods; her desire for love was to him as as her outbursts of temper and the succeeding . Now, Edward was always the same—contented equally with the universe at large and with himself; there was no shadow of a doubt about the fact that the world he lived in, the particular spot and period, were the very best possible; and that no existence could be more satisfactory than happily to cultivate one’s garden. Not being , he forbore to think about the matter; and if he had, would not have borrowed the phrases of M. de Voltaire, whom he had never heard of, and would have as a Frenchman, a philosopher, and a wit. But the fact that Edward ate, drank, slept, and ate again, as regularly as the oxen on his farm, proved that he enjoyed a happiness equal to theirs—and what more can a decent man want?
 
Edward had moreover that magnificent of always doing right and of knowing it, which is said to be the most inestimable gift of the true ; but if his infallibility pleased himself and his neighbours, it did not fail to cause his wife the utmost . She would her hands and from her eyes shoot arrows of fire, when he stood in front of her, smilingly conscious of the justice of his own standpoint and the unreason of hers. And the worst of it was that in her moments Bertha had to confess that Edward’s view was invariably right and she completely in the wrong. Her her, and she took upon her own shoulders the blame of all their unhappiness. Always, after a quarrel from which Edward had come with his usual triumph, Bertha’s rage would be succeeded by a passion of ; and she could not find sufficient reproaches with which to herself. She asked how her husband could be expected to love her; and in a transport of agony and fear would take the first opportunity of throwing her arms around his neck and making the most apology. Then, having eaten the dust before him, having wept and herself, she would be for a week absurdly happy, under the impression that henceforward nothing short of an earthquake could disturb their blissful . Edward was again the golden , clothed in the garments of true love, his word was law and his deeds were perfect; Bertha was an worshipper, offering and grateful to the that forbore to crush her. It required very little for her to forget the slights and the coldness of her husband’s affection: her love was like the tide covering a barren rock; the sea breaks into waves and is in , while the rock ever unchanged. This , by the way, would not have Edward; when he thought at all, he liked to think how firm and he was.
 
At night, before going to sleep, it was Bertha’s greatest pleasure to kiss her husband on the lips, and it her to see how mechanically he replied to this embrace. It was always she who had to make the advance, and when, to try him, she omitted to do so, he went off to sleep without even bidding her good-night. Then she told herself that he must utterly despise her.
 
“Oh, it drives me mad to think of the devotion I waste on you,” she cried. “I’m a fool! You are all in the world to me, and I, to you, am a sort of accident: you might have married any one but me. If I hadn’t come across your path you would infallibly have married somebody else.”
 
“Well, so would you,” he answered, laughing.
 
“I? Never! If I had not met you I should have married no one. My love isn’t a that I am willing to give to whomever chance throws in my way. My heart is one and indivisible; it would be impossible for me to love any one but you.... When I think that to you I’m nothing more than any other woman might be, I’m ashamed.”
 
“You do talk the most awful rot sometimes.”
 
“Ah, that summarises your whole opinion. To you I’m merely a fool of a woman. I’m a domestic animal, a little more companionable than a dog, but on the whole, not so useful as a cow.”
 
“I don’t know what you want me to do more than I actually do. You can’t expect me to be kissing and cuddling all the time. The is meant for that, and a man who goes on all his life, is an .”
 
“Ah yes, with you love is kept out of sight all day, while you are occupied with the serious affairs of life, such as sheep or hunting foxes; and after dinner it arises in your , especially if you’ve had good things to eat, and is indistinguishable from the process of . But for me love is everything, the cause and reason of life. Without love I should be non-existent.”
 
“Well, you may love me,” said Edward, “but, by Jove, you’ve got a jolly funny way of showing it.... But as far as I’m concerned, if you’ll tell me what you want me to do, I’ll try and do it.”
 
“Oh, how can I tell you?” she cried, impatiently. “I do everything I can to make you love me and I can’t. If you’re a stock and a stone, how can I teach you to be the passionate lover? I want you to love me as I love you.”
 
“Well, if you ask me for my opinion I should say it was rather a good job I don’t. Why, the furniture would be smashed up in a week, if I were as violent as you.”
 
“I shouldn’t mind if you were violent if you loved me,” replied Bertha, taking his remark with seriousness. “I shouldn’t care if you beat me; I should not mind how much you hurt me, if you did it because you loved me.”
 
“I think a week of it would about sicken you of that sort of love, my dear.”
 
“Anything would be preferable to your .”
 
“But God bless my soul, I’m not indifferent. Any one would think I didn’t care for you—or was gone on some other woman.”
 
“I almost wish you were,” answered Bertha. “If you loved any one at all, I might have some hope of gaining your affection—but you’re of love.”
 
“I don’t know about that. I can say truly that after............