Beside which, Raymond
would be made to feel as if a load were taken off his mind if
of my free will I broke our engagement and left him free from any
responsibility toward me. But all the time his letters told me that
he loved me better than ever, and I lived only in the hope of his
home-coming. So I refused to listen to them. They wrote to him;
told him what the doctor said and appealed to him to set me free.
And he, loyal and good as he was, gave me back my promise. He believed
he would get well. But he knew he could not return to Ribe. He had
resigned his command and gone back to the rank and pay of a plain
lieutenant. He could not offer me now such a home as I was used to
these many years; and as he was so much older than I, he thought
it his duty to tell me all this. And all the time he knew, oh,
so well! that I would never leave him, come what might, sickness,
poverty, or death itself. I was bound to stand by him to the last.
That was a hard winter. Father and mother, who could not look into
my heart and see that I still loved them as dearly as ever--I know
so well they meant it all for the best--called me ungrateful and
told me that I was blind and would not see what made for my good,
and that therefore they must take their own measures for my happiness.
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