"No, no, you shall not die! You shall get better! We shall love each other for ever—for ever!"
She said in faint tones:
"Then it is true. You do love me, after all?"
And he, in his sorrow for her misfortunes, swore, promised to wait till she had recovered, and full of loving pity, kissed again and again the emaciated hands of the poor woman whose heart was panting with feverish, irregular pulsations.
The next day he returned to the garrison.
Six weeks later she went to meet him, quite old-looking, unrecognizable, and more enamored than ever.
In his condition of mental prostration, he consented to live with her. Then, when they remained together as if they had been legally united, the same colonel who had displayed indignation with him for abandoning her, objected to this irregular connection as being incompatible with the good example officers ought to give in a regiment. He warned the lieutenant on the subject, and then furiously denounced his conduct, so Renoldi retired from the army.
He went to live in a village on the shore of the Mediterranean, the classic sea of lovers.
And three years passed. Renoldi, bent under the yoke, was vanquished, and became accustomed to the woman's persevering devotion. His hair had now turned white.
He looked upon himself as a man done for, gone under. Henceforth, he had no hope, no ambition, no satisfaction in life, and he looked forward to no pleasure in existence.