The last chapter in Book Two is short and remarkably unsentimental, considering that it marks the end of Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley's idyll — and, for all we know, the end of their affair, as Henry is returning to the front. Hemingway resists the urge to milk melodrama from the lovers' goodbye, and this is consistent with the characters themselves and their stoic behavior up to this point. Notice that it continues to rain as they bid one another farewell. In fact, Catherine's last act in this part of the novel is to signal to Henry that he should step in out of the rain.
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