'What rage and mortification were in my heart! The rules of the service alone prevented me calling him to a terrible account, though indeed he was not to blame.
'When I attempted to reason or remonstrate with her, she laughed; then after a time became indignant. We parted in anger, and I felt fury and death in my heart when she tossed my engagement-ring at my feet.
'Once again we met, alone, and by the merest chance. How my pulses throbbed as our eyes met, and she coyly presented her hand, which I was craven enough, and fool enough, to fondle!
'"Oh, what have I done," said I, "that you should treat me thus? that you should tread my heart under your feet, and leave me to long years of sorrow and repining?"
'Then she laughed, and snatched her hand away, while once again my soul seemed to die within me.
'"Do you love this kinsman?" I asked her fiercely; and never till my last hour shall I forget her reply, or the almost cruel expression of her face.
'"Yes; I love him—love him with my whole heart, and as I never loved you!"
'Turning away, she left me—left me rooted to the spot. Yet she had some shame, or compunction, left in her after all; for next day came a would-be piteous letter of explanation, that she had given this lieutenant a promise to please her father when he was dying—her father who was his guardian; how she had never had the courage to tell me so at first; that she did not dream I loved her so much; that I must learn to forget her, though she would never forget me; and so—a thousand devils!—there was an end of it.
'A few weeks after I saw her marriage in the papers, to the Lieutenant—d—n his name—to her and her fortune of ever so many thousand guilders.
'I tore her farewell letter into minute fragments, and set to work to adopt her advice.'