I told you I could not." Lucina said no more.

She turned her face and went on.

She said good-bye quickly when she reached the road, and was across it and under the bars into the millet.
Jerome did not attempt to follow her; he stood for a moment watching her moving through the millet, as through the brown waves of a shallow sea; then he went back into the woods.

When he reached the place where he had sat with Lucina he stopped and spoke, as if she were still there.
"Lucina," he said, "I promise you before God, that I will never, so long as I live, love or marry any other woman but you.

I promise you that I will work as I never did before--my fingers to the bone, my heart to its last drop of blood--to earn enough to marry you.