A month later, two persons were sitting in one of the drawing-rooms at Hald; the one was Jeanné, the other Captain Krusé, who the same day had arrived with the general's body from Holstein. Gregers Daa had been buried in his family vault in the cathedral at Viborg. Jeanné had read the letter he had addressed to her in his tent the evening before the battle. Krusé related to her, word for word, what had passed the same evening between them. Jeanné wept bitterly while he spoke, and when he had finished there was a long and unbroken silence in the room. A little after, Jeanné held out her hand to him, and said,
'Leave me, now, my friend. I wish to be alone.'
There was something of decision and earnestness in the tone in which she spoke that alarmed the captain.' He held her hand in his while he asked:
'And when may I come back?'
'Never! Never come back!' replied Jeanné, with the utmost composure, 'for I no longer love you!'
Krusé stood petrified. Then he whispered in accents which betrayed the deepest despair:
'And your vows, and your assurance that if you did not belong to him, no living creature should separate us?'
'I have not forgotten all that,' she replied; 'but I now belong to him more than ever I did. Go, Jacob Krusé, I beseech of you. It is not the living which separates us, but the dead!'
Having thus spoken she left the room.
What strange contradictions there are in a woman's heart! Jeanné kept her word, and remained until her death a lonely and sorrowing widow.