'You have heard it,' he whispered; 'we must go--we shall part, for ever, perhaps--I must say a few words to you first. Meet me down yonder--only this once, this once--for the first and the last time!'
'No, no!' cried Jeanné, vehemently: 'I have already refused this. Oh, go!--it would be wrong!'
'Oh, I pray you,' he continued, in a still more touching and trembling voice, 'do not refuse my petition! Are you afraid of me, Jeanné, though in all these long years I have shown you how safe you are near me? Or are you afraid that your glance will fall on yonder wood, where, one afternoon, you promised to love me, where the sun shone, and the birds sang, while God received those vows which have since been so cruelly broken?'
Jeanné burst into tears. 'But go--only go, unhappy one! Do you not hear? There is some one coming--it is my husband.'
'Let him come, he is not my worst enemy at this moment.'
Jeanné cast on him a sorrowful and reproachful look, but at the same time held out her hand to him. Krusé sprang up.
'Then you have some pity for all that I have suffered,' he said; 'and you will not let me go without one kind word at parting?'
She bowed her head almost imperceptibly, and yet it was sufficient for him; his eyes shone, his lips trembled, in his deep emotion.
When Gregers returned to the room, they were both sitting quietly and in perfect silence.
A few minutes afterwards, Krusé took leave, and rode away. Within an hour from that time, a youthful figure stole softly out of one of the side-doors which led from the apartments of the lady of the house down to the garden. She was wrapped in a large shawl, and moved slowly, and, as if unwillingly, onwards. Krusé hastened to meet her as she entered the garden. Jeanné received him more coldly than she need have done after having consented to the interview. But he knew her so well, he had expected nothing else.