Chapter II: The Farewell

Gregers Daa received the letter when he was sitting in the same room as Jeanne. His pale cheeks flushed as he read it; Jeanne remarked his emotion. She sat working near the fireplace, and at a little distance from her was a third person, a guest that evening--this person was Captain Kruse.

After Jeanne's marriage he had often visited her at Hald, Gregers himself encouraged him to come, when he perceived that she seemed pleased to see him. He had not then the most remote idea of the engagement which had formerly existed between them.

'That letter seems to interest you,' said Jeanne, turning towards the general.

'Yes--certainly!' replied Gregers. 'I am called away to-morrow.'

'Called away!' exclaimed at the same moment Jeanne and Kruse.

There was something in the tone of the captain's exclamation which seemed to displease the general; he knitted his brow, while he answered,

'I ought to have said that _we_ are called away. I have just received an order for our regiment to join the army in Holstein immediately.'

Jeanne uttered no exclamation. During the last two or three years she had acquired complete command over her feelings; her countenance remained calm, and did not betray the slightest sign of agitation.

Gregers relapsed into his former silence; he had returned to the place where he had before been sitting, by a table in a corner of the room, at a little distance from Jeanne, because, he said, the lights on her table hurt his eyes; from that place his look seemed to be fastened steadily upon the two others.

During the uncomfortable silence which now reigned in the drawing-room, were distinctly heard the wailing of the stormy wind, and the screech of the owls amidst the elm-trees on the outside of the windows.

Shortly after Gregers arose, took a candle, and left the room. Those who remained behind heard his steps becoming fainter and fainter as he traversed the long corridor which led to his study. When they were alone Jeanne let her work fall, and bending over the table covered her eyes with her hand. On raising her head again in a little time, she uttered a low cry, for Kruse was lying at her feet! She made a motion of her hand as if to bid him go, but the captain seized that soft white hand and pressed it to his lips, while he cast an indescribably beseeching look up at her.

'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 Jeanne, 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, Jeanne, 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?'

Jeanne 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.'

Jeanne cast on him a sorrowful and reproachful look, but at the same time held out her hand to him. Kruse 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, Kruse 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. Kruse hastened to meet her as she entered the garden. Jeanne 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.

'You desired me yesterday,' he began, in a low and unsteady voice, 'not to come up often to Hald, and were vexed at me this evening because I venture to disobey your injunction. God is my witness, Jeanne, that it was my intention to have been guided by your commands.'

'Why, then, did you come this evening?' she asked.

'Because I knew before the general did that we were to be ordered on immediate service, and I could not resist seeing you once more ere our departure.'

'Would to God we had never met each other!' she whispered in a low sad voice. 'It would have been better for us both.'

'Oh, I entreat you,' he said, with that irresistible tenderness which had always found its way to Jeanne's heart, 'do not say that. I am going far away now, and your wish will be fulfilled; but why should you give me so sad a souvenir to take with me? It is probable, Jeanne, that I shall never return--indeed, it is almost certain, for on what account, or for whom need I seek to save my life?--but if I _do_ return, should I be fated to live, will you then be less merciful than God, and deny me permission to visit you as hitherto? If you will only grant me leave to see you again, I shall never misuse that kindness by a word or a look of which you might disapprove; no sigh, no complaint shall betray to you what I suffer.'

'Oh Heavens!' whispered Jeanne, 'do _I_ not suffer too myself, and do you not perceive that your presence here only prolongs a struggle under which it is certain that we shall both sink? What can you wish to know that you do not already know? What can you see here except that I am Gregers Daa's wife?'

'Yes, it is true--too true!' he replied, scarcely above his breath. 'Farewell! It is best that we should never meet again.'

'Farewell!' replied Jeanne, in the same heartbroken tone. 'But you will not thrust yourself needlessly in the way of danger. Do you hear?--you will not do that? Oh, you must not--you dare not!'

'I am weary of battling with my fate!'

'And I, too!' exclaimed Jeanne, bursting into tears.

There was a confession as well as a depth of sorrow in these words; he raised his head, grasped her hand, and carried it to his lips.

'Farewell!' he said--'farewell! God be with you, Jeanne!'

She left her hand in his, and whispered, 'Farewell, until we meet again!'

'I may come, then!' he exclaimed joyfully.

'Since you threaten to throw your life away. But go now--leave me. Let me beg this of you.'

Kruse knelt before her, whilst he kissed her hand and said:

'Put up a prayer for me, then I shall, perhaps, come back, and God may have compassion upon us both.'

He sprang up and left her; a minute or two after, the clatter of his horse's hoofs was heard upon the other side of the garden fence.

Jeanne stood and listened.

At that moment Jeanne felt her hand seized, and the following words were uttered in a low, sad, scarcely audible tone:

'Put up also a prayer for me, Jeanne!'

She started back, and uttered a piercing shriek. A man stood before her, in whom she recognized Gregers Daa, whose countenance in the bluish moonlight looked even paler than usual, and whose smile was sweet, placid, and resigned as it had ever been.

Jeanne thought herself lost; she fell at his feet, and stretched out her clasped hands towards him, while she exclaimed:

'Oh, forgive me! Do not condemn me. I am not so guilty as you must think--if you only understood me--if you only knew all--'

'Hush, my dear child!' whispered Gregers, in a voice that was full of grief, but mild and consoling. 'Do not weep so bitterly; I know all, and it is you who do not understand me. You have never understood me aright. Let us go in now.'

He assisted the pale, trembling young woman up to her apartment, and then retired to his own study.

The next morning, Gregers, attended by his servant, had started on his journey before Jeanne was awake.