"Noémi, do you know why I have come?"
She stood up, holding the half-finished wreath in her hands and looking down. She did not answer, tears filled her eyes and trickled over her cheeks.
"Noémi," said he gravely, "you recall that incident by the charcoal-burner's lodge, that moment of terrible danger when the peasants, mad with revenge and success and the blood of the wolves they had killed, would have torn you——"
She did not answer. As she raised her hand with the helebore wreath, he saw that the ring was on her finger where he had placed it.
"I said what I did then, and I placed on your finger that ring, which is indeed your own—as you had entrusted it to me to show to your father—and I declared before all present that you were affianced to me. It was so."
She bowed her head.
"But, Noémi, you know that this can never, never be."
She looked up quickly, sadly at him. Her eyes were full of tears.
Jean was deeply agitated.
"You must return me the ring—if only for the form's sake, so as to undo the pledge and dissolve the engagement—I will give it back to you as a surrender of a loan—as nothing else."