farewell, yet he had believed her. Through all his sojourn at
Colmar he had told himself that she would be true to him. He
believed it, though he was hardly sure of himself--had hardly
resolved that he would ever go back to Granpere to seek her. His
father had turned him out of the house, and Marie had told him as he
went that she would never marry him if her uncle disapproved it.
Slight as her word had been on that morning of his departure, it had
rankled in his bosom, and made him angry with her through a whole
twelvemonth. And yet he had believed that she would be true to him!

He went out in the evening when it was dusk and walked round and
round the public garden of Colmar, thinking of the news which he had
heard--the public garden, in which stands the statue of General
Rapp. It was a terrible blow to him. Though he had remained a
whole year in Colmar without seeing Marie, or hearing of her,
without hardly ever having had her name upon his lips, without even
having once assured himself during the whole time that the happiness
of his life would depend on the girl's constancy to him,--now that
he heard that she was to be married to another man, he was torn to
pieces by anger and regret. He had sworn to love her, and had never
even spoken a word of tenderness to another girl. She had given him
her plighted troth, and now she was prepared to break it with the
first man who asked her! As he thought of this, his brow became
black with anger. But his regrets were as violent. What a fool he
had been to leave her there, open to persuasion from any man who
came in the way, open to persuasion from his father, who would, of
course, be his enemy. How, indeed, could he expect that she should
be true to him? The year had been long enough to him, but it must
have been doubly long to her. He had expected that his father would
send for him, would write to him, would at least transmit to him