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The Golden Lion of Granpere

by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #5202 · 390,187 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Golden Lion of Granpere

Author: Anthony Trollope


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5202]
                Most recently updated: April 29, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5202

Credits: E-text prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN LION OF GRANPERE ***


E-text prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset



THE GOLDEN LION OF GRANPERE, BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE.




CHAPTER I.

Up among the Vosges mountains in Lorraine, but just outside the old
half-German province of Alsace, about thirty miles distant from the
new and thoroughly French baths of Plombieres, there lies the
village of Granpere.  Whatever may be said or thought here in
England of the late imperial rule in France, it must at any rate be
admitted that good roads were made under the Empire.  Alsace, which
twenty years ago seems to have been somewhat behindhand in this
respect, received her full share of Napoleon's attention, and
Granpere is now placed on an excellent road which runs from the town
of Remiremont on one line of railway, to Colmar on another.  The
inhabitants of the Alsatian Ballon hills and the open valleys among
them seem to think that the civilisation of great cities has been
brought near enough to them, as there is already a diligence running
daily from Granpere to Remiremont;--and at Remiremont you are on the
railway, and, of course, in the middle of everything.

And indeed an observant traveller will be led to think that a great
deal of what may most truly be called civilisation has found its way
in among the Ballons, whether it travelled thither by the new-fangled
railways and imperial routes, or found its passage along the
valley streams before imperial favours had been showered upon the
district.  We are told that when Pastor Oberlin was appointed to his
cure as Protestant clergyman in the Ban de la Roche a little more
than one hundred years ago,--that was, in 1767,--this region was
densely dark and far behind in the world's running as regards all
progress.  The people were ignorant, poor, half-starved, almost
savage, destitute of communication, and unable to produce from their
own soil enough food for their own sustenance.  Of manufacturing
enterprise they understood nothing, and were only just far enough
advanced in knowledge for the Protestants to hate the Catholics, and
the Catholics to hate the Protestants.  Then came that wonderful
clergyman, Pastor Oberlin,--he was indeed a wonderful clergyman,--and
made a great change.  Since that there have been the two empires,
and Alsace has looked up in the world.  Whether the thanks
of the people are more honestly due to Oberlin or to the late
Emperor, the author of this little story will not pretend to say;
but he will venture to express his opinion that at present the rural
Alsatians are a happy, prosperous people, with the burden on their
shoulders of but few paupers, and fewer gentlemen,--apparently a
contented people, not ambitious, given but little to politics.
Protestants and Catholics mingled without hatred or fanaticism,
educated though not learned, industrious though not energetic, quiet
and peaceful, making linen and cheese, growing potatoes, importing
corn, coming into the world, marrying, begetting children, and dying
in the wholesome homespun fashion which is so sweet to us in that
mood of philosophy which teaches us to love the country and to
despise the town.  Whether it be better for a people to achieve an
even level of prosperity, which is shared by all, but which makes
none eminent, or to encounter those rough, ambitious, competitive
strengths which produce both palaces and poor-houses, shall not be
matter of argument here; but the teller of this story is disposed to
think that the chance traveller, as long as he tarries at Granpere,
will insensibly and perhaps unconsciously become an advocate of the
former doctrine; he will be struck by the comfort which he sees
around him, and for a while will dispense with wealth, luxury,
scholarships, and fashion.  Whether the inhabitants of these hills
and valleys will advance to farther progress now that they are again
to become German, is another question, which the writer will not
attempt to answer here.

Granpere in itself is a very pleasing village.  Though the amount of
population and number of houses do not suffice to make it more than
a village, it covers so large a space of ground as almost to give it
a claim to town honours.  It is perhaps a full mile in length; and
though it has but one street, there are buildings standing here and
there, back from the line, which make it seem to stretch beyond the
narrow confines of a single thoroughfare.  In most French villages
some of the houses are high and spacious, but here they seem almost
all to be so.  And many of them have been constructed after that
independent fashion which always gives to a house in a street a
character and importance of its own.  They do not stand in a simple
line, each supported by the strength of its neighbour, but occupy
their own ground, facing this way or that as each may please,
presenting here a corner to the main street, and there an end.
There are little gardens, and big stables, and commodious barns; and
periodical paint with annual whitewash is not wanting.  The
unstinted slates shine copiously under the sun, and over almost
every other door there is a large lettered board which indicates
that the resident within is a dealer in the linen which is produced
throughout the country.  All these things together give to Granpere
an air of prosperity and comfort which is not at all checked by the
fact that there is in the place no mansion which we Englishmen would
call the gentleman's house, nothing approaching to the ascendancy of
a parish squire, no baron's castle, no manorial hall,--not even a
chateau to overshadow the modest roofs of the dealers in the linen
of the Vosges.

And the scenery round Granpere is very pleasant, though the
neighbouring hills never rise to the magnificence of mountains or
produce that grandeur which tourists desire when they travel in
search of the beauties of Nature.  It is a spot to love if you know
it well, rather than to visit with hopes raised high, and to leave
with vivid impressions.  There is water in abundance; a pretty lake
lying at the feet of sloping hills, rivulets running down from the
high upper lands and turning many a modest wheel in their course, a
waterfall or two here and there, and a so-called mountain summit
within an easy distance, from whence the sun may be seen to rise
among the Swiss mountains;--and distant perhaps three miles from the
village the main river which runs down the valley makes for itself a
wild ravine, just where the bridge on the new road to Munster
crosses the water, and helps to excuse the people of Granpere for
claiming for themselves a great object of natural attraction.  The
bridge and the river and the ravine are very pretty, and perhaps
justify all that the villagers say of them when they sing to
travellers the praises of their country.

Whether it be the sale of linen that has produced the large inn at
Granpere, or the delicious air of the place, or the ravine and the
bridge, matters little to our story; but the fact of the inn matters
very much.  There it is,--a roomy, commodious building, not easily
intelligible to a stranger, with its widely distributed parts,
standing like an inverted V, with its open side towards the main
road.  On the ground-floor on one side are the large stables and
coach-house, with a billiard-room and cafe over them, and a long
balcony which runs round the building; and on the other side there
are kitchens and drinking-rooms, and over these the chamber for
meals and the bedrooms.  All large, airy, and clean, though,
perhaps, not excellently well finished in their construction, and
furnished with but little pretence to French luxury.  And behind the
inn there are gardens, by no means trim, and a dusty summer-house,
which serves, however, for the smoking of a cigar; and there is
generally space and plenty and goodwill.  Either the linen, or the
air, or the ravine, or, as is more probable, the three combined,
have produced a business, so that the landlord of the Lion d'Or at
Granpere is a thriving man.

The reader shall at once be introduced to the landlord, and informed
at the same time that, in so far as he may be interested in this
story, he will have to take up his abode at the Lion d'Or till it be
concluded; not as a guest staying loosely at his inn, but as one who
is concerned with all the innermost affairs of the household.  He
will not simply eat his plate of soup, and drink his glass of wine,
and pass on, knowing and caring more for the servant than for the
servant's master, but he must content himself to sit at the
landlord's table, to converse very frequently with the landlord's
wife, to become very intimate with the landlord's son--whether on
loving or on unloving terms shall be left entirely to himself--and
to throw himself, with the sympathy of old friendship, into all the
troubles and all the joys of the landlord's niece.  If the reader be
one who cannot take such a journey, and pass a month or two without
the society of persons whom he would define as ladies and gentlemen,
he had better be warned at once, and move on, not setting foot
within the Lion d'Or at Granpere.

Michel Voss, the landlord, in person was at this time a tall, stout,
active, and very handsome man, about fifty years of age.  As his son
was already twenty-five--and was known to be so throughout the
commune--people were sure that Michel Voss was fifty or thereabouts;
but there was very little in his appearance to indicate so many
years.  He was fat and burly to be sure; but then he was not fat to
lethargy, or burly with any sign of slowness.  There was still the
spring of youth in his footstep, and when there was some weight to
be lifted, some heavy timber to be thrust here or there, some huge
lumbering vehicle to be hoisted in or out, there was no arm about
the place so strong as that of the master.  His short, dark, curly
hair--that was always kept clipped round his head--was beginning to
show a tinge of gray, but the huge moustache on his upper lip was
still of a thorough brown, as was also the small morsel of beard
which he wore upon his chin.  He had bright sharp brown eyes, a nose
slightly beaked, and a large mouth.  He was on the whole a man of
good temper, just withal, and one who loved those who belonged to
him; but he chose to be master in his own house, and was apt to
think that his superior years enabled him to know what younger
people wanted better than they would know themselves.  He was loved
in his house and respected in his village; but there was something
in the beak of his nose and the brightness of his eye which was apt
to make those around him afraid of him.  And indeed Michel Voss
could lose his temper and become an angry man.

Our landlord had been twice married.  By his first wife he had now
living a single son, George Voss, who at the time of our tale had
already reached his twenty-fifth year.  George, however, did not at
this time live under his father's roof, having taken service for a
time with the landlady of another inn at Colmar.  George Voss was
known to be a clever young man; many in those parts declared that he
was much more so than his father; and when he became clerk at the
Poste in Colmar, and after a year or two had taken into his hands
almost the entire management of that house--so that people began to
say that old-fashioned and wretched as it was, money might still be
made there--people began to say also that Michel Voss had been wrong
to allow his son to leave Granpere.  But in truth there had been a
few words between the father and the son; and the two were so like
each other that the father found it difficult to rule, and the son
found it difficult to be ruled.

George Voss was very like his father, with this difference, as he
was often told by the old folk about Granpere, that he would never
fill his father's shoes.  He was a smaller man, less tall by a
couple of inches, less broad in proportion across the shoulders,
whose arm would never be so strong, whose leg would never grace a
tight stocking with so full a development.  But he had the same eye,
bright and brown and very quick, the same mouth, the same aquiline
nose, the same broad forehead and well-shaped chin, and the same
look in his face which made men know as by instinct that he would
sooner command than obey.  So there had come to be a few words, and
George Voss had gone away to the house of a cousin of his mother's,
and had taken to commanding there.

Not that there had been any quarrel between the father and the son;
nor indeed that George was aware that he had been in the least
disobedient to his parent.  There was no recognised ambition for
rule in the breasts of either of them.  It was simply this, that
their tempers were alike; and when on an occasion Michel told his
son that he would not allow a certain piece of folly which the son
was, as he thought, likely to commit, George declared that he would
soon set that matter right by leaving Granpere.  Accordingly he did
leave Granpere, and became the right hand, and indeed the head, and
backbone, and best leg of his old cousin Madame Faragon of the Poste
at Colmar.  Now the matter on which these few words occurred was a
question of love--whether George Voss should fall in love with and
marry his step-mother's niece Marie Bromar.  But before anything
farther can be said of these few words, Madame Voss and her niece
must be introduced to the reader.

Madame Voss was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, and
had now been a wife some five or six years.  She had been brought
from Epinal, where she had lived with a married sister, a widow,
much older than herself--in parting from whom on her marriage there
had been much tribulation.  'Should anything happen to Marie,' she
had said to Michel Voss, before she gave him her troth, 'you will
let Minnie Bromar come to me?'  Michel Voss, who was then hotly
in love with his hoped-for bride--hotly in love in spite of his
four-and-forty years--gave the required promise.  The said 'something'
which had been suspected had happened.  Madame Bromar had died, and
Minnie Bromar her daughter--or Marie as she was always afterwards
called--had at once been taken into the house at Granpere.  Michel
never thought twice about it when he was reminded of his promise.
'If I hadn't promised at all, she should come the same,' he said.
'The house is big enough for a dozen more yet.'  In saying this he
perhaps alluded to a little baby that then lay in a cradle in his
wife's room, by means of which at that time Madame Voss was able to
make her big husband do pretty nearly anything that she pleased.  So
Marie Bromar, then just fifteen years of age, was brought over from
Epinal to Granpere, and the house certainly was not felt to be too
small because she was there.  Marie soon learned the ways and wishes
of her burly, soft-hearted uncle; would fill his pipe for him, and
hand him his soup, and bring his slippers, and put her soft arm
round his neck, and became a favourite.  She was only a child when
she came, and Michel thought it was very pleasant; but in five
years' time she was a woman, and Michel was forced to reflect that
it would not be well that there should be another marriage and
another family in the house while he was so young himself,--there
was at this time a third baby in the cradle,--and then Marie Bromar
had not a franc of dot.  Marie was the sweetest eldest daughter in
the world, but he could not think it right that his son should marry
a wife before he had done a stroke for himself in the world.
Prudence made it absolutely necessary that he should say a word to
his son.

Madame Voss was certainly nearly twenty years younger than her
husband, and yet the pair did not look to be ill-sorted.  Michel was
so handsome, strong, and hale; and Madame Voss, though she was a
comely woman,--though when she was brought home a bride to Granpere
the neighbours had all declared that she was very handsome,--carried
with her a look of more years than she really possessed.  She had
borne many of a woman's cares, and had known much of woman's sorrows
before she had become wife to Michel Voss; and then when the babes
came, and she had settled down as mistress of that large household,
and taught herself to regard George Voss and Marie Bromar almost as
her own children, all idea that she was much younger than her
husband departed from her.  She was a woman who desired to excel her
husband in nothing,--if only she might be considered to be in some
things his equal.  There was no feeling in the village that Michel
Voss had brought home a young wife and had made a fool of himself.
He was a man entitled to have a wife much younger than himself.
Madame Voss in those days always wore a white cap and a dark stuff
gown, which was changed on Sundays for one of black silk, and brown
mittens on her hands, and she went about the house in soft carpet
shoes.  She was a conscientious, useful, but not an enterprising
woman; loving her husband much and fearing him somewhat; liking to
have her own way in certain small matters, but willing to be led in
other things so long as those were surrendered to her; careful with
her children, the care of whom seemed to deprive her of the power of
caring for the business of the inn; kind to her niece, good-humoured
in her house, and satisfied with the world at large as long as she
might always be allowed to entertain M. le Cure at dinner on
Sundays.  Michel Voss, Protestant though he was, had not the
slightest objection to giving M. le Cure his Sunday dinner, on
condition that M. le Cure on these occasions would confine his
conversation to open subjects.  M. le Cure was quite willing to eat
his dinner and give no offence.

A word too must be said of Marie Bromar before we begin our story.
Marie Bromar is the heroine of this little tale; and the reader must
be made to have some idea of her as she would have appeared before
him had he seen her standing near her uncle in the long room
upstairs of the hotel at Granpere.  Marie had been fifteen when she
was brought from Epinal to Granpere, and had then been a child; but
she had now reached her twentieth birthday, and was a woman.  She
was not above the middle height, and might seem to be less indeed in
that house, because her aunt and her uncle were tall; but she was
straight, well made, and very active.  She was strong and liked to
use her strength, and was very keen about all the work of the house.
During the five years of her residence at Granpere she had
thoroughly learned the mysteries of her uncle's trade.  She knew
good wine from bad by the perfume; she knew whether bread was the
full weight by the touch; with a glance of her eye she could tell
whether the cheese and butter were what they ought to be; in a
matter of poultry no woman in all the commune could take her in; she
was great in judging eggs; knew well the quality of linen; and was
even able to calculate how long the hay should last, and what should
be the consumption of corn in the stables.  Michel Voss was well
aware before Marie had been a year beneath his roof that she well
earned the morsel she ate and the drop she drank; and when she had
been there five years he was ready to swear that she was the
cleverest girl in Lorraine or Alsace.  And she was very pretty, with
rich brown hair that would not allow itself to be brushed out of its
crisp half-curls in front, and which she always wore cut short
behind, curling round her straight, well-formed neck.  Her eyes were
gray, with a strong shade indeed of green, but were very bright and
pleasant, full of intelligence, telling stories by their glances of
her whole inward disposition, of her activity, quickness, and desire
to have a hand in everything that was being done.  Her father Jean
Bromar had come from the same stock with Michel Voss, and she, too,
had something of that aquiline nose which gave to the innkeeper and
his son the look which made men dislike to contradict them.  Her
mouth was large, but her teeth were very white and perfect, and her
smile was the sweetest thing that ever was seen.  Marie Bromar was a
pretty girl, and George Voss, had he lived so near to her and not
have fallen in love with her, must have been cold indeed.

At the end of these five years Marie had become a woman, and was
known by all around her to be a woman much stronger, both in person
and in purpose, than her aunt; but she maintained, almost
unconsciously, many of the ways in the house which she had assumed
when she first entered it.  Then she had always been on foot, to be
everybody's messenger,--and so she was now.  When her uncle and aunt
were at their meals she was always up and about,--attending them,
attending the public guests, attending the whole house.  And it
seemed as though she herself never sat down to eat or drink.
Indeed, it was rare enough to find her seated at all.  She would
have a cup of coffee standing up at the little desk near the public
window when she kept her books, or would take a morsel of meat as
she helped to remove the dishes.  She would stand sometimes for a
minute leaning on the back of her uncle's chair as he sat at his
supper, and would say, when he bade her to take her chair and eat
with them, that she preferred picking and stealing.  In all things
she worshipped her uncle, observing his movements, caring for his
wants, and carrying out his plans.  She did not worship her aunt,
but she so served Madame Voss that had she been withdrawn from the
household Madame Voss would have found herself altogether unable to
provide for its wants.  Thus Marie Bromar had become the guardian
angel of the Lion d'Or at Granpere.

There must be a word or two more said of the difference between
George Voss and his father which had ended in sending George to
Colmar; a word or two about that, and a word also of what occurred
between George and Marie.  Then we shall be able to commence our
story without farther reference to things past.  As Michel Voss was
a just, affectionate, and intelligent man, he would not probably
have objected to a marriage between the two young people, had the
proposition for such a marriage been first submitted to him, with a
proper amount of attention to his judgment and controlling power.
But the idea was introduced to him in a manner which taught him to
think that there was to be a clandestine love affair.  To him George
was still a boy, and Marie not much more than a child, and--without
much thinking--he felt that the thing was improper.

'I won't have it, George,' he had said.

'Won't have what, father?'

'Never mind.  You know.  If you can't get over it in any other way,
you had better go away.  You must do something for yourself before
you can think of marrying.'

'I am not thinking of marrying.'

'Then what were you thinking of when I saw you with Marie?  I won't
have it for her sake, and I won't have it for mine, and I won't have
it for your own.  You had better go away for a while.'

'I'll go away to-morrow if you wish it, father.'  Michel had turned
away, not saying another word; and on the following day George did go
away, hardly waiting an hour to set in order his part of his father's
business.  For it must be known that George had not been an idler
in his father's establishment.  There was a trade of wood-cutting
upon the mountain-side, with a saw-mill turned by water beneath,
over which George had presided almost since he had left the
school of the commune.  When his father told him that he was bound
to do something before he got married, he could not have intended to
accuse him of having been hitherto idle.  Of the wood-cutting and
the saw-mill George knew as much as Marie did of the poultry and the
linen.  Michel was wrong, probably, in his attempt to separate them.
The house was large enough, or if not, there was still room for
another house to be built in Granpere.  They would have done well as
man and wife.  But then the head of a household naturally objects to
seeing the boys and girls belonging to him making love under his
nose without any reference to his opinion.  'Things were not made so
easy for me,' he says to himself, and feels it to be a sort of duty
to take care that the course of love shall not run altogether
smooth.  George, no doubt, was too abrupt with his father; or
perhaps it might be the case that he was not sorry to take an
opportunity of leaving for a while Granpere and Marie Bromar.  It
might be well to see the world; and though Marie Bromar was bright
and pretty, it might be that there were others abroad brighter and
prettier.

His father had spoken to him on one fine September afternoon, and
within an hour George was with the men who were stripping bark from
the great pine logs up on the side of the mountain.  With them, and
with two or three others who were engaged at the saw-mills, he
remained till the night was dark.  Then he came down and told
something of his intentions to his stepmother.  He was going to
Colmar on the morrow with a horse and small cart, and would take
with him what clothes he had ready.  He did not speak to Marie that
night, but he said something to his father about the timber and the
mill.  Gaspar Muntz, the head woodsman, knew, he said, all about the
business.  Gaspar could carry on the work till it would suit Michel
Voss himself to see how things were going on.  Michel Voss was sore
and angry, but he said nothing.  He sent to his son a couple of
hundred francs by his wife, but said no word of explanation even to
her.  On the following morning George was off without seeing his
father.

But Marie was up to give him his breakfast.  'What is the meaning of
this, George?' she said.

'Father says that I shall be better away from this,--so I'm going
away.'

'And why will you be better away?'  To this George made no answer.
'It will be terrible if you quarrel with your father.  Nothing can
be so bad as that.'

'We have not quarrelled.  That is to say, I have not quarrelled with
him.  If he quarrels with me, I cannot help it.'

'It must be helped,' said Marie, as she placed before him a mess of
eggs which she had cooked for him with her own hands.  'I would
sooner die than see anything wrong between you two.'  Then there was
a pause.  'Is it about me, George?' she asked boldly.

'Father thinks that I love you:--so I do.'

Marie paused for a few minutes before she said anything farther.
She was standing very near to George, who was eating his breakfast
heartily in spite of the interesting nature of the conversation.  As
she filled his cup a second time, she spoke again.  'I will never do
anything, George, if I can help it, to displease my uncle.'

'But why should it displease him?  He wants to have his own way in
everything.'

'Of course he does.'

'He has told me to go;--and I'll go.  I've worked for him as no
other man would work, and have never said a word about a share in
the business;--and never would.'

'Is it not all for yourself, George?'

'And why shouldn't you and I be married if we like it?'

'I will never like it,' said she solemnly, 'if uncle dislikes it.'

'Very well,' said George.  'There is the horse ready, and now I'm
off.'

So he went, starting just as the day was dawning, and no one saw him
on that morning except Marie Bromar.  As soon as he was gone she
went up to her little room, and sat herself down on her bedside.
She knew that she loved him, and had been told that she was beloved.
She knew that she could not lose him without suffering terribly; but
now she almost feared that it would be necessary that she should
lose him.  His manner had not been tender to her.  He had indeed
said that he loved her, but there had been nothing of the tenderness
of love in his mode of saying so;--and then he had said no word of
persistency in the teeth of his father's objection.  She had
declared--thoroughly purposing that her declaration should be
true--that she would never become his wife in opposition to her
uncle's wishes; but he, had he been in earnest, might have said
something of his readiness to attempt at least to overcome his
father's objection.  But he had said not a word, and Marie, as she sat
upon her bed, made up her mind that it must be all over.  But she made
up her mind also that she would entertain no feeling of anger against
her uncle.  She owed him everything, so she thought--making no
account, as George had done, of labour given in return.  She was
only a girl, and what was her labour?  For a while she resolved that
she would give a spoken assurance to her uncle that he need fear
nothing from her.  It was natural enough to her that her uncle
should desire a better marriage for his son.  But after a while she
reflected that any speech from her on such a subject would be
difficult, and that it would be better that she should hold her
tongue.  So she held her tongue, and thought of George, and
suffered;--but still was merry, at least in manner, when her uncle
spoke to her, and priced the poultry, and counted the linen, and
made out the visitors' bills, as though nothing evil had come upon
her.  She was a gallant girl, and Michel Voss, though he could not
speak of it, understood her gallantry and made notes of it on the
note-book of his heart.

In the mean time George Voss was thriving at Colmar,--as the Vosses
did thrive wherever they settled themselves.  But he sent no word to
his father,--nor did his father send word to him,--though they were
not more than ten leagues apart.  Once Madame Voss went over to see
him, and brought back word of his well-doing.



CHAPTER II.

Exactly at eight o'clock every evening a loud bell was sounded in
the hotel of the Lion d'Or at Granpere, and all within the house
sat down together to supper.  The supper was spread on a long table
in the saloon up-stairs, and the room was lighted with camphine
lamps,--for as yet gas had not found its way to Granpere.  At this
meal assembled not only the guests in the house and the members of the
family of the landlord,--but also many persons living in the village
whom it suited to take, at a certain price per month, the chief meal
of the day, at the house of the innkeeper, instead of eating in
their own houses a more costly, a less dainty, and probably a lonely
supper.  Therefore when the bell was heard there came together some
dozen residents of Granpere, mostly young men engaged in the linen
trade, from their different lodgings, and each took his accustomed
seat down the sides of the long board, at which, tied in a knot, was
placed his own napkin.  At the top of the table was the place of
Madame Voss, which she never failed to fill exactly three minutes
after the bell had been rung.  At her right hand was the chair of
the master of the house,--never occupied by any one else;--but it
would often happen that some business would keep him away.  Since
George had left him he had taken the timber into his own hands, and
was accustomed to think and sometimes to say that the necessity was
cruel on him.  Below his chair and on the other side of Madame Voss
there would generally be two or three places kept for guests who
might be specially looked upon as the intimate friends of the
mistress of the house; and at the farther end of the table, close to
the window, was the space allotted to travellers.  Here the napkins
were not tied in knots, but were always clean.  And, though the
little plates of radishes, cakes, and dried fruits were continued
from one of the tables to the other, the long-necked thin bottles of
common wine came to an end before they reached the strangers'
portion of the board; for it had been found that strangers would
take at that hour either tea or a better kind of wine than that
which Michel Voss gave to his accustomed guests without any special
charge.  When, however, the stranger should please to take the
common wine, he was by no means thereby prejudiced in the eyes of
Madame Voss or her husband.  Michel Voss liked a profit, but he
liked the habits of his country almost as well.

One evening in September, about twelve months after the departure of
George, Madame Voss took her seat at the table, and the young men of
the place who had been waiting round the door of the hotel for a few
minutes, followed her into the room.  And there was M. Goudin, the
Cure, with another young clergyman, his friend.  On Sundays the Cure
always dined at the hotel at half-past twelve o'clock, as the friend
of the family; but for his supper he paid, as did the other guests.
I rather fancy that on week days he had no particular dinner; and
indeed there was no such formal meal given in the house of Michel
Voss on week days.  There was something put on the table about noon
in the little room between the kitchen and the public window; but
except on Sundays it could hardly be called a dinner.  On Sundays a
real dinner was served in the room up-stairs, with soup, and
removes, and entrees and the roti, all in the right place,--which
showed that they knew what a dinner was at the Lion d'Or;--but,
throughout the week, supper was the meal of the day.  After M.
Goudin, on this occasion, there came two maiden ladies from Epinal
who were lodging at Granpere for change of air.  They seated
themselves near to Madame Voss, but still leaving a place or two
vacant.  And presently at the bottom of the table there came an
Englishman and his wife, who were travelling through the country;
and so the table was made up.  A lad of about fifteen, who was known
in Granpere as the waiter at the Lion d'Or, looked after the two
strangers and the young men, and Marie Bromar, who herself had
arranged the board, stood at the top of the room, by a second table,
and dispensed the soup.  It was pleasant to watch her eyes, as she
marked the moment when the dispensing should begin, and counted her
guests, thoughtful as to the sufficiency of the dishes to come; and
noticed that Edmond Greisse had sat down with such dirty hands that
she must bid her uncle to warn the lad; and observed that the more
elderly of the two ladies from Epinal had bread too hard to suit
her,--which should be changed as soon as the soup had been
dispensed.  She looked round, and even while dispensing saw
everything.  It was suggested in the last chapter that another house
might have been built in Granpere, and that George Voss might have
gone there, taking Marie as his bride; but the Lion d'Or would
sorely have missed those quick and careful eyes.

Then, when that dispensing of the soup was concluded, Michel entered
the room bringing with him a young man.  The young man had evidently
been expected; for, when he took the place close at the left hand of
Madame Voss, she simply bowed to him, saying some word of courtesy
as Michel took his place on the other side.  Then Marie dispensed
two more portions of soup, and leaving one on the farther table for
the boy to serve, though she could well have brought the two, waited
herself upon her uncle.  'And is Urmand to have no soup?' said
Michel Voss, as he took his niece lovingly by the hand.

'Peter is bringing it,' said Marie.  And in a moment or two Peter
the waiter did bring the young man his soup.

'And will not Mademoiselle Marie sit down with us?' said the young
man.

'If you can make her, you have more influence than I,' said Michel.
'Marie never sits, and never eats, and never drinks.'  She was
standing now close behind her uncle with both her hands upon his
head; and she would often stand so after the supper was commenced,
only moving to attend upon him, or to supplement the services of
Peter and the maid-servant when she perceived that they were
becoming for a time inadequate to their duties.  She answered her
uncle now by gently pulling his ears, but she said nothing.

'Sit down with us, Marie, to oblige me,' said Madame Voss.

'I had rather not, aunt.  It is foolish to sit at supper and not
eat.  I have taken my supper already.'  Then she moved away, and
hovered round the two strangers at the end of the room.  After
supper Michel Voss and the young man--Adrian Urmand by name--lit
their cigars and seated themselves on a bench outside the front
door.  'Have you never said a word to her?' said Michel.

'Well;--a word; yes.'

'But you have not asked her--; you know what I mean;--asked her
whether she could love you.'

'Well,--yes.  I have said as much as that, but I have never got an
answer.  And when I did ask her, she merely left me.  She is not
much given to talking.'

'She will not make the worse wife, my friend, because she is not
much given to such talking as that.  When she is out with me on a
Sunday afternoon she has chat enough.  By St. James, she'll talk for
two hours without stopping when I'm so out of breath with the hill
that I haven't a word.'

'I don't doubt she can talk.'

'That she can; and manage a house better than any girl I ever saw.
You ask her aunt.'

'I know what her aunt thinks of her.  Madame Voss says that neither
you nor she can afford to part with her.'

Michel Voss was silent for a moment.  It was dusk, and no one could
see him as he brushed a tear from each eye with the back of his
hand.  'I'll tell you what, Urmand,--it will break my heart to lose
her.  Do you see how she comes to me and comforts me?  But if it
broke my heart, and broke the house too, I would not keep her here.
It isn't fit.  If you like her, and she can like you, it will be a
good match for her.  You have my leave to ask her.  She brought
nothing here, but she has been a good girl, a very good girl, and
she will not leave the house empty-handed.'

Adrian Urmand was a linen-buyer from Basle, and was known to have a
good share in a good business.  He was a handsome young man too,
though rather small, and perhaps a little too apt to wear rings on
his fingers and to show jewelry on his shirt-front and about his
waistcoat.  So at least said some of the young people of Granpere,
where rings and gold studs are not so common as they are at Basle.
But he was one who understood his business, and did not neglect it;
he had money too; and was therefore such a young man that Michel
Voss felt that he might give his niece to him without danger, if he
and she could manage to like each other sufficiently.  As to
Urmand's liking, there was no doubt.  Urmand was ready enough.

'I will see if she will speak to me just now,' said Urmand after a
pause.

'Shall her aunt try it, or shall I do it?' said Michel.

But Adrian Urmand thought that part of the pleasure of love lay in
the making of it himself.  So he declined the innkeeper's offer, at
any rate for the present occasion.  'Perhaps,' said he, 'Madame Voss
will say a word for me after I have spoken for myself.'

'So let it be,' said the landlord.  And then they finished their
cigars in silence.

It was in vain that Adrian Urmand tried that night to obtain
audience from Marie.  Marie, as though she well knew what was wanted
of her and was determined to thwart her lover, would not allow
herself to be found alone for a moment.  When Adrian presented
himself at the window of her little bar, he found that Peter was
with her, and she managed to keep Peter with her till Adrian was
gone.  And again, when he hoped to find her alone for a few moments
after the work of the day was over in the small parlour where she
was accustomed to sit for some half hour before she would go up to
her room, he was again disappointed.  She was already up-stairs with
her aunt and the children, and all Michel Voss's good nature in
keeping out of the way was of no avail.

But Urmand was determined not to be beaten.  He intended to return
to Basle on the next day but one, and desired to put this matter a
little in forwardness before he took his departure.  On the
following morning he had various appointments to keep with
countrymen and their wives, who sold linen to him, but he was quick
over his business and managed to get back to the inn early in the
afternoon.  From six till eight he well knew that Marie would allow
nothing to impede her in the grand work of preparing for supper; but
at four o'clock she would certainly be sitting somewhere about the
house with her needle in her hand.  At four o'clock he found her,
not with her needle in her hand, but, better still, perfectly idle.
She was standing at an open window, looking out upon the garden as
he came behind her, standing motionless with both hands on the sill
of the window, thinking deeply of something that filled her mind.
It might be that she was thinking of him.

'I have done with my customers now, and I shall be off to Basle
to-morrow,' said he, as soon as she had looked round at the sound of
his footsteps and perceived that he was close to her.

'I hope you have bought your goods well, M. Urmand.'

'Ah! for the matter of that the time for buying things well is clean
gone.  One used to be able to buy well; but there is not an old
woman now in Alsace who doesn't know as well as I do, or better,
what linen is worth in Berne and Paris.  They expect to get nearly
as much for it here at Granpere.'

'They work hard, M. Urmand, and things are dearer than they were.
It is well that they should get a price for their labour.'

'A price, yes:--but how is a man to buy without a profit?  They
think that I come here for their sakes,--merely to bring the market
to their doors.'  Then he began to remember that he had no special
object in discussing the circumstances of his trade with Marie
Bromar, and that he had a special object in another direction.  But
how to turn the subject was now a difficulty.

'I am sure you do not buy without a profit,' said Marie Bromar, when
she found that he was silent.  'And then the poor people, who have
to pay so dear for everything!'  She was making a violent attempt to
keep him on the ground of his customers and his purchases.

'There was another thing that I wanted to say to you, Marie,' he
began at last abruptly.

'Another thing,' said Marie, knowing that the hour had come.

'Yes;--another thing.  I daresay you know what it is.  I need not
tell you now that I love you, need I, Marie?  You know as well as I
do what I think of you.'

'No, I don't,' said Marie, not intending to encourage him to tell
her, but simply saying that which came easiest to her at the moment.

'I think this,--that if you will consent to be my wife, I shall be a
very happy man.  That is all.  Everybody knows how pretty you are,
and how good, and how clever; but I do not think that anybody loves
you better than I do.  Can you say that you will love me, Marie?
Your uncle approves of it,--and your aunt.'  He had now come quite
close to her, and having placed his hand behind her back, was
winding his arm round her waist.

'I will not have you do that, M. Urmand,' she said, escaping from
his embrace.

'But that is no answer.  Can you love me, Marie?'

'No,' she said, hardly whispering the word between her teeth.

'And is that to be all?'

'What more can I say?'

'But your uncle wishes it, and your aunt.  Dear Marie, can you not
try to love me?'

'I know they wish it.  It is easy enough for a girl to see when such
things are wished or when they are forbidden.  Of course I know that
uncle wishes it.  And he is very good;--and so are you, I daresay.
And I'm sure I ought to be very proud, because you are so much above
me.'

'I am not a bit above you.  If you knew what I think, you wouldn't
say so.'

'But--'

'Well, Marie.  Think a moment, dearest, before you give me an answer
that shall make me either happy or miserable.'

'I have thought.  I would almost burn myself in the fire, if uncle
wished it.'

'And he does wish this.'

'But I cannot do this even because he wishes it.'

'Why not, Marie?'

'I prefer being as I am.  I do not wish to leave the hotel, or to be
married at all.'

'Nay, Marie, you will certainly be married some day.'

'No; there is no such certainty.  Some girls never get married.  I
am of use here, and I am happy here.'

'Ah! it is because you cannot love me.'

'I don't suppose I shall ever love any one, not in that way.  I must
go away now, M. Urmand, because I am wanted below.'

She did go, and Adrian Urmand spoke no farther word of love to her
on that occasion.

'I will speak to her about it myself,' said Michel Voss, when he
heard his young friend's story that evening, seated again upon the
bench outside the door, and smoking another cigar.

'It will be of no use,' said Adrian.

'One never knows,' said Michel.  'Young women are queer cattle to
take to market.  One can never be quite certain which way they want
to go.  After you are off to-morrow, I will have a few words with
her.  She does not quite understand as yet that she must make her
hay while the sun shines.  Some of 'em are all in a hurry to get
married, and some of 'em again are all for hanging back, when their
friends wish it.  It's natural, I believe, that they should be
contrary.  But Marie is as good as the best of them, and when I
speak to her, she'll hear reason.'

Adrian Urmand had no alternative but to assent to the innkeeper's
proposition.  The idea of making love second-hand was not pleasant
to him; but he could not hinder the uncle from speaking his mind to
the niece.  One little suggestion he did make before he took his
departure.  'It can't be, I suppose, that there is any one else that
she likes better?'  To this Michel Voss made no answer in words, but
shook his head in a fashion that made Adrian feel assured that there
was no danger on that head.

But Michel Voss, though he had shaken his head in a manner so
satisfactory, had feared that there was such danger.  He had
considered himself justified in shaking his head, but would not be
so false as to give in words the assurance which Adrian had asked.
That night he discussed the matter with his wife, declaring it as
his purpose that Marie Bromar should marry Adrian Urmand.  'It is
impossible that she should do better,' said Michel.

'It would be very well,' said Madame Voss.

'Very well!  Why, he is worth thirty thousand francs, and is as
steady at his business as his father was before him.'

'He is a dandy.'

'Psha! that is nothing!' said Michel.

'And he is too fond of money.'

'It is a fault on the right side,' said Michel.  'His wife and
children will not come to want.'

Madame Voss paused a moment before she made her last and grand
objection to the match.  'It is my belief,' said she, 'that Marie is
always thinking of George.'

'Then she had better cease to think of him,' said Michel; 'for
George is not thinking of her.'  He said nothing farther, but
resolved to speak his own mind freely to Marie Bromar.



CHAPTER III.

The old-fashioned inn at Colmar, at which George Voss was acting as
assistant and chief manager to his father's distant cousin, Madame
Faragon, was a house very different in all its belongings from the
Lion d'Or at Granpere.  It was very much larger, and had much higher
pretensions.  It assumed to itself the character of a first-class
hotel; and when Colmar was without a railway, and was a great
posting-station on the high road from Strasbourg to Lyons, there was
some real business at the Hotel de la Poste in that town.  At
present, though Colmar may probably have been benefited by the
railway, the inn has faded, and is in its yellow leaf.  Travellers
who desire to see the statue which a grateful city has erected to
the memory of its most illustrious citizen, General Rapp, are not
sufficient in number to keep a first-class hotel in the glories of
fresh paint and smart waiters; and when you have done with General
Rapp, there is not much to interest you in Colmar.  But there is the
hotel; and poor fat, unwieldy Madame Faragon, though she grumbles
much, and declares that there is not a sou to be made, still keeps
it up, and bears with as much bravery as she can the buffets of a
world which seems to her to be becoming less prosperous and less
comfortable and more exacting every day.  In her younger years, a
posting-house in such a town was a posting-house; and when M.
Faragon married her, the heiress of the then owner of the business,
he was supposed to have done uncommonly well for himself.  Madame
Faragon is now a childless widow, and sometimes declares that she
will shut the house up and have done with it.  Why maintain a
business without a profit, simply that there may be an Hotel de la
Poste at Colmar?  But there are old servants whom she has not the
heart to send away; and she has at any rate a roof of her own over
her head; and though she herself is unconscious that it is so, she
has many ties to the old business; and now, since her young cousin
George Voss has been with her, things go a little better.  She is
not robbed so much, and the people of the town, finding that they
can get a fair bottle of wine and a good supper, come to the inn;
and at length an omnibus has been established, and there is a little
glimmer of returning prosperity.

It is a large old rambling house, built round an irregularly-shaped
court, with another court behind it; and in both courts the stables
and coach-houses seem to be so mixed with the kitchens and
entrances, that one hardly knows what part of the building is equine
and what part human.  Judging from the smell which pervades the
lower quarters, and, alas, also too frequently the upper rooms, one
would be inclined to say that the horses had the best of it.  The
defect had been pointed out to Madame Faragon more than once; but
that lady, though in most of the affairs of life her temper is
gentle and kindly, cannot hear with equanimity an insinuation that
any portion of her house is either dirty or unsweet.  Complaints
have reached her that the beds were--well, inhabited--but no servant
now dares to hint at anything wrong in this particular.  If this
traveller or that says a word to her personally in complaint, she
looks as sour as death, and declines to open her mouth in reply; but
when that traveller's back is turned, the things that Madame Faragon
can say about the upstart coxcombry of the wretch, and as to the
want of all real comforts which she is sure prevails in the home
quarters of that ill-starred complaining traveller, are proof to
those who hear them that the old landlady has not as yet lost all
her energy.  It need not be doubted that she herself religiously
believes that no foul perfume has ever pervaded the sanctity of her
chambers, and that no living thing has ever been seen inside the
sheets of her beds, except those guests whom she has allocated to
the different rooms.

Matters had not gone very easily with George Voss in all the changes
he had made during the last year.  Some things he was obliged to do
without consulting Madame Faragon at all.  Then she would discover
what was going on, and there would be a 'few words.'  At other times
he would consult her, and carry his purpose only after much
perseverance.  Twice or thrice he had told her that he must go away,
and then with many groans she had acceded to his propositions.  It
had been necessary to expend two thousand francs in establishing the
omnibus, and in that affair the appearance of things had been at one
time quite hopeless.  And then when George had declared that the
altered habits of the people required that the hour of the morning
table-d'hote should be changed from noon to one, she had sworn that
she would not give way.  She would never lend her assent to such
vile idleness.  It was already robbing the business portion of the
day of an hour.  She would wrap her colours round her and die upon
the ground sooner than yield.  'Then they won't come,' said George,
'and it's no use you having the table then.  They will all go to the
Hotel de l'Imperatrice.'  This was a new house, the very mention of
which was a dagger-thrust into the bosom of Madame Faragon.  'Then
they will be poisoned,' she said.  'And let them!  It is what they
are fit for.'  But the change was made, and for the first three days
she would not come out of her room.  When the bell was rung at the
obnoxious hour, she stopped her ears with her two hands.

But though there had been these contests, Madame Faragon had made
more than one effort to induce George Voss to become her partner and
successor in the house.  If he would only bring in a small sum of
money--a sum which must be easily within his father's reach--he
should have half the business now, and all of it when Madame Faragon
had gone to her rest.  Or if he would prefer to give Madame Faragon
a pension--a moderate pension--she would give up the house at once.
At these tender moments she used to say that he probably would not
begrudge her a room in which to die.  But George Voss would always
say that he had no money, that he could not ask his father for
money, and that he had not made up his mind to settle at Colmar.
Madame Faragon, who was naturally much interested in the matter, and
was moreover not without curiosity, could never quite learn how
matters stood at Granpere.  A word or two she had heard in a
circuitous way of Marie Bromar, but from George himself she could
never learn anything of his affairs at home.  She had asked him once
or twice whether it would not be well that he should marry, but he
had always replied that he did not think of such a thing--at any
rate as yet.  He was a steady young man, given more to work than to
play, and apparently not inclined to amuse himself with the girls of
the neighbourhood.

One day Edmond Greisse was over at Colmar--Edmond Greisse, the lad
whose untidy appearance at the supper-table at the Lion d'Or had
called down the rebuke of Marie Bromar.  He had been sent over on
some business by his employer, and had come to get his supper and
bed at Madame Faragon's hotel.  He was a modest, unassuming lad, and
had been hardly more than a boy when George Voss had left Granpere.
From time to time George had seen some friend from the village, and
had thus heard tidings from home.  Once, as has been said, Madame
Voss had made a pilgrimage to Madame Faragon's establishment to
visit him; but letters between the houses had not been frequent.
Though postage in France--or shall we say Germany?--is now almost as
low as in England, these people of Alsace have not yet fallen into
the way of writing to each other when it occurs to any of them that
a word may be said.  Young Greisse had seen the landlady, who now
never went upstairs among her guests, and had had his chamber
allotted to him, and was seated at the supper-table, before he met
George Voss.  It was from Madame Faragon that George heard of his
arrival.

'There is a neighbour of yours from Granpere in the house,' said
she.

'From Granpere?  And who is he?'

'I forget the lad's name; but he says that your father is well, and
Madame Voss.  He goes back early to-morrow with the roulage and some
goods that his people have bought.  I think he is at supper now.'

The place of honour at the top of the table at the Colmar inn was
not in these days assumed by Madame Faragon.  She had, alas, become
too stout to do so with either grace or comfort, and always took her
meals, as she always lived, in the little room downstairs, from
which she could see, through the apertures of two doors, all who
came in and all who went out by the chief entrance of the hotel.
Nor had George usurped the place.  It had now happened at Colmar, as
it has come to pass at most hotels, that the public table is no
longer the table-d'hote.  The end chair was occupied by a stout,
dark man, with a bald head and black beard, who was proudly filling
a place different from that of his neighbours, and who would
probably have gone over to the Hotel de l'Imperatrice had anybody
disturbed him.  On the present occasion George seated himself next
to the lad, and they were soon discussing all the news from
Granpere.

'And how is Marie Bromar?' George asked at last.

'You have heard about her, of course,' said Edmond Greisse.

'Heard what?'

'She is going to be married.'

'Minnie Bromar to be married?  And to whom?'

Edmond at once understood that his news was regarded as being
important, and made the most of it.

'O dear, yes.  It was settled last week when he was there.'

'But who is he?'

'Adrian Urmand, the linen-buyer from Basle.'

'Marie to be married to Adrian Urmand?'

Urmand's journeys to Granpere had been commenced before George Voss
had left the place, and therefore the two young men had known each
other.

'They say he's very rich,' said Edmond.

'I thought he cared for nobody but himself.  And are you sure?  Who
told you?'

'I am quite sure; but I do not know who told me.  They are all
talking about it.'

'Did my father ever tell you?'

'No, he never told me.'

'Or Marie herself?'

'No, she did not tell me.  Girls never tell those sort of things of
themselves.'

'Nor Madame Voss?' asked George.

'She never talks much about anything.  But you may be sure it's
true.  I'll tell you who told me first, and he is sure to know,
because he lives in the house.  It was Peter Veque.'

'Peter Veque, indeed!  And who do you think would tell him?'

'But isn't it quite likely?  She has grown to be such a beauty!
Everybody gives it to her that she is the prettiest girl round
Granpere.  And why shouldn't he marry her?  If I had a lot of money,
I'd only look to get the prettiest girl I could find anywhere.'

After this, George said nothing farther to the young man as to the
marriage.  If it was talked about as Edmond said, it was probably
true.  And why should it not be true?  Even though it were true, no
one would have cared to tell him.  She might have been married twice
over, and no one in Granpere would have sent him word.  So he
declared to himself.  And yet Marie Bromar had once sworn to him
that she loved him, and would be his for ever and ever; and, though
he had left her in dudgeon, with black looks, without a kind word of
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
some word that would make him know that his presence was again
desired at Granpere.  But his father had been as proud as he was,
and had not sent any such message.  Or rather, perhaps, the father
being older and less impatient, had thought that a temporary absence
from Granpere might be good for his son.

It was late at night when George Voss went to bed, but he was up in
the morning early to see Edmond Greisse before the roulage should
start for Munster on its road to Granpere.  Early times in that part
of the world are very early, and the roulage was ready in the back
court of the inn at half-past four in the morning.

'What? you up at this hour?' said Edmond.

'Why not?  It is not every day we have a friend here from Granpere,
so I thought I would see you off.'

'That is kind of you.'

'Give my love to them at the old house, Edmond.'

'Of course I will.'

'To father, and Madame Voss, and the children, and to Marie.'

'All right.'

'Tell Marie that you have told me of her marriage.'

'I don't know whether she'll like to talk about that to me.'

'Never mind; you tell her.  She won't bite you.  Tell her also that
I shall be over at Granpere soon to see her and the rest of them.
I'll be over--as soon as ever I can get away.'

'Shall I tell your father that?'

'No.  Tell Marie, and let her tell my father.'

'And when will you come?  We shall all be so glad to see you.'

'Never you mind that.  You just give my message.  Come in for a
moment to the kitchen.  There's a cup of coffee for you and a slice
of ham.  We are not going to let an old friend like you go away
without breaking his fast.'

As Greisse had already paid his modest bill, amounting altogether to
little more than three francs, this was kind of the young landlord,
and while he was eating his bread and ham he promised faithfully
that he would give the message just as George had given it to him.

It was on the third day after the departure of Edmond Greisse that
George told Madame Faragon that he was going home.

'Going where, George?' said Madame Faragon, leaning forward on the
table before her, and looking like a picture of despair.

'To Granpere, Madame Faragon.'

'To Granpere! and why? and when? and how?  O dear!  Why did you not
tell me before, child?'

'I told you as soon as I knew.'

'But you are not going yet?'

'On Monday.'

'O dear!  So soon as that!  Lord bless me!  We can't do anything
before Monday.  And when will you be back?'

'I cannot say with certainty.  I shall not be long, I daresay.'

'And have they sent for you?'

'No, they have not sent for me, but I want to see them once again.
And I must make up my mind what to do for the future.'

'Don't leave me, George; pray do not leave me!' exclaimed Madame
Faragon.  'You shall have the business now if you choose to take
it--only pray don't leave me!'

George explained that at any rate he would not desert her now at
once; and on the Monday named he started for Granpere.  He had not
been very quick in his action, for a week had passed since he had
given Edmond Greisse his breakfast in the hotel kitchen.



CHAPTER IV.

Adrian Urmand had been three days gone from Granpere before Michel
Voss found a fitting opportunity for talking to his niece.  It was
not a matter, as he thought, in which there was need for any great
hurry, but there was need for much consideration.  Once again he
spoke on the subject to his wife.

'If she's thinking about George, she has kept it very much to
herself,' he remarked.

'Girls do keep it to themselves,' said Madame Voss.

'I'm not so sure of that.  They generally show it somehow.  Marie
never looks lovelorn.  I don't believe a bit of it; and as for him,
all the time he has been away he has never so much as sent a word of
a message to one of us.'

'He sent his love to you, when I saw him, quite dutifully,' said
Madame Voss.

'Why don't he come and see us if he cares for us?  It isn't of him
that Marie is thinking.'

'It isn't of anybody else then,' said Madame Voss.  'I never see her
speak a word to any of the young men, nor one of them ever speaking
a word to her.'

Pondering over all this, Michel Voss resolved that he would have it
all out with his niece on the following Sunday.

On the Sunday he engaged Marie to start with him after dinner to the
place on the hillside where they were cutting wood.  It was a
beautiful autumn afternoon, in that pleasantest of all months in the
year, when the sun is not too hot, and the air is fresh and balmy,
and one is still able to linger abroad, loitering either in or out
of the shade, when the midges cease to bite, and the sun no longer
scorches and glares; but the sweet vestiges of summer remain, and
everything without doors is pleasant and friendly, and there is the
gentle unrecognised regret for the departing year, the unconscious
feeling that its glory is going from us, to add the inner charm of a
soft melancholy to the outer luxury of the atmosphere.  I doubt
whether Michel Voss had ever realised the fact that September is the
kindliest of all the months, but he felt it, and enjoyed the leisure
of his Sunday afternoon when he could get his niece to take a
stretch with him on the mountain-side.  On these occasions Madame
Voss was left at home with M. le Cure, who liked to linger over his
little cup of coffee.  Madame Voss, indeed, seldom cared to walk
very far from the door of her own house; and on Sundays to go to the
church and back again was certainly sufficient exercise.

Michel Voss said no word about Adrian Urmand as they were ascending
the hill.  He was too wise for that.  He could not have given effect
to his experience with sufficient eloquence had he attempted the
task while the burden of the rising ground was upon his lungs and
chest.  They turned into a saw-mill as they went up, and counted the
scantlings of timber that had been cut; and Michel looked at the
cradle to see that it worked well, and to the wheels to see that
they were in good order, and observed that the channel for the water
required repairs, and said a word as to the injury that had come to
him because George had left him.  'Perhaps he may come back soon,'
said Marie.  To this he made no answer, but continued his path up
the mountain-side.  'There will be plenty of feed for the cows this
autumn,' said Marie Bromar.  'That is a great comfort.'

'Plenty,' said Michel; 'plenty.'  But Marie knew from the tone of
his voice that he was not thinking about the grass, and so she held
her peace.  But the want or plenty of the pasture was generally a
subject of the greatest interest to the people of Granpere at that
special time of the year, and one on which Michel Voss was ever
ready to speak.  Marie therefore knew that there was something on
her uncle's mind.  Nevertheless he inspected the timber that was
cut, and made some remarks about the work of the men.  They were not
so careful in barking the logs as they used to be, and upon the
whole he thought that the wood itself was of a worse quality.  What
is there that we do not find to be deteriorating around us when we
consider the things in detail, though we are willing enough to admit
a general improvement?  'Yes,' said he, in answer to some remarks
from Marie, 'we must take it, no doubt, as God gives it to us, but
we need not spoil it in the handling.  Sit down, my dear; I want to
speak to you for a few minutes.'  Then they sat down together on a
large prostrate pine, which was being prepared to be sent down to
the saw-mill.  'My dear,' said he, 'I want to speak to you about
Adrian Urmand.'  She blushed and trembled as she placed herself
beside him; but he hardly noticed it.  He was not quite at his ease
himself, and was a little afraid of the task he had undertaken.
'Adrian tells me that he asked you to take him as your lover, and
that you refused.'

'Yes, Uncle Michel.'

'But why, my dear?  How are you to do better?  Perhaps I, or your
aunt, should have spoken to you first, and told you that we thought
well of the match.'

'It wasn't that, uncle.  I knew you thought well of it; or, at
least, I believed that you did.'

'And what is your objection, Marie?'

'I don't object to M. Urmand, uncle;--at least, not particularly.'

'But he says you do object.  You would not accept him when he
offered himself.'

'No; I did not accept him.'

'But you will, my dear,--if he comes again?'

'No, uncle.'

'And why not?  Is he not a good young man?'

'O, yes,--that is, I daresay.'

'And he has a good business.  I do not know what more you could
expect.'

'I expect nothing, uncle,--except not to go away from you.'

'Ah,--but you must go away from me.  I should be very wrong, and so
would your aunt, to let you remain here till you lose your good
looks, and become an old woman on our hands.  You are a pretty girl,
Marie, and fit to be any man's wife, and you ought to take a
husband.  I am quite in earnest now, my dear; and I speak altogether
for your own welfare.'

'I know you are in earnest, and I know that you speak for my
welfare.'

'Well;--well;--what then?  Of course, it is only reasonable that you
should be married some day.  Here is a young man in a better way of
business than any man, old or young, that comes into Granpere.  He
has a house in Basle, and money to put in it whatever you want.  And
for the matter of that, Marie, my niece shall not go away from me
empty-handed.'

She drew herself closer to him and took hold of his arm and pressed
it, and looked up into his face.

'I brought nothing with me,' she said, 'and I want to take nothing
away.'

'Is that it?' he said, speaking rapidly.  'Let me tell you then, my
girl, that you shall have nothing but your earnings,--your fair
earnings.  Don't you take trouble about that.  Urmand and I will
settle that between us, and I will go bail there shall be no
unpleasant words.  As I said before, my girl sha'n't leave my house
empty-handed; but, Lord bless you, he would only be too happy to
take you in your petticoat, just as you are.  I never saw a fellow
more in love with a girl.  Come, Marie, you need not mind saying the
word to me, though you could not bring yourself to say it to him.'

'I can't say that word, uncle, either to you or to him.'

'And why the devil not?' said Michel Voss, who was beginning to be
tired of being eloquent.

'I would rather stay at home with you and my aunt.'

'O, bother!'

'Some girls stay at home always.  All girls do not get married.  I
don't want to be taken to Basle.'

'This is all nonsense,' said Michel, getting up.  'If you're a good
girl, you will do as you are told.'

'It would not be good to be married to a man if I do not love him.'

'But why shouldn't you love him?  He's just the man that all the
girls always love.  Why don't you love him?'

As Michel Voss asked this last question, there was a tone of anger
in his voice.  He had allowed his niece considerable liberty, and
now she was unreasonable.  Marie, who, in spite of her devotion to
her uncle, was beginning to think that she was ill-used by this
tone, made no reply.  'I hope you haven't been falling in love with
any one else,' continued Michel.

'No,' said Marie, in a low whisper.

'I do hope you're not still thinking of George, who has left us
without casting a thought upon you.  I do hope that you are not such
a fool as that.'  Marie sat perfectly silent, not moving; but there
was a frown on her brow and a look of sorrow mixed with anger on her
face.  But Michel Voss did not see her face.  He looked straight
before him as he spoke, and was flinging chips of wood to a distance
in his energy.  'If it's that, Marie, I tell you you had better get
quit of it at once.  It can come to no good.  Here is an excellent
husband for you.  Be a good girl, and say that you will accept him.'

'I should not be a good girl to accept a man whom I do not love.'

'Is it any thought about George that makes you say so, child?'
Michel paused a moment for an answer.  'Tell me,' he continued, with
almost angry energy, 'is it because of George that you refuse
yourself to this young man?'

Marie paused again for a moment, and then she replied, 'No, it is
not.'

'It is not?'

'No, uncle.'

'Then why will you not marry Adrian Urmand?'

'Because I do not care for him.  Why won't you let me remain with
you, uncle?'

She was very close to him now, and leaning against him; and her
throat was half choked with sobs, and her eyes were full of tears.
Michel Voss was a soft-hearted man, and inclined to be very soft of
heart where Marie Bromar was concerned.  On the other hand he was
thoroughly convinced that it would be for his niece's benefit that
she should marry this young trader; and he thought also that it was
his duty as her uncle and guardian to be round with her, and make
her understand, that as her friends wished it, and as the young
trader himself wished it, it was her duty to do as she was desired.
Another uncle and guardian in his place would hardly have consulted
the girl at all.  Between his desire to have his own way and reduce
her to obedience, and the temptation to put his arm round her waist
and kiss away her tears, he was uneasy and vacillating.  She gently
put her hand within his arm, and pressed it very close.

'Won't you let me remain with you, uncle?  I love you and Aunt
Josey' (Madame Voss was named Josephine, and was generally called
Aunt Josey) 'and the children.  I could not go away from the
children.  And I like the house.  I am sure I am of use in the
house.'

'Of course you are of use in the house.  It is not that.'

'Why, then, should you want to send me away?'

'What nonsense you talk, Marie!  Don't you know that a young woman
like you ought to be married some day--that is if she can get a
fitting man to take her?  What would the neighbours say of me if we
kept you at home to drudge for us, instead of settling you out in
the world properly?  You forget, Marie, that I have a duty to
perform, and you should not make it so difficult.'

'But if I don't want to be settled?' said Marie.  'Who cares for the
neighbours?  If you and I understand each other, is not that
enough?'

'I care for the neighbours,' said Michel Voss with energy.

'And must I marry a man I don't care a bit for, because of the
neighbours, Uncle Michel?' asked Marie, with something approaching
to indignation in her voice.

Michel Voss perceived that it was of no use for him to carry on the
argument.  He entertained a half-formed idea that he did not quite
understand the objections so strongly urged by his niece; that there
was something on her mind that she would not tell him, and that
there might be cruelty in urging the matter upon her; but, in
opposition to this, there was his assured conviction that it was his
duty to provide well and comfortably for his niece, and that it was
her duty to obey him in acceding to such provision as he might make.
And then this marriage was undoubtedly a good marriage--a match that
would make all the world declare how well Michel Voss had done for
the girl whom he had taken under his protection.  It was a marriage
that he could not bear to see go out of the family.  It was not
probable that the young linen-merchant, who was so well to do in the
world, and who, no doubt, might have his choice in larger places
than Granpere--it was not probable, Michel thought, that he would
put up with many refusals.  The girl would lose her chance, unless
he, by his firmness, could drive this folly out of her.  And yet how
could he be firm, when he was tempted to throw his great arms about
her, and swear that she should eat of his bread and drink of his
cup, and be unto him as a daughter, till the last day of their joint
existence.  When she crept so close to him and pressed his arm, he
was almost overcome by the sweetness of her love and by the
tenderness of his own heart.

'It seems to me that you don't understand,' he said at last.  'I
didn't think that such a girl as you would be so silly.'

To this she made no reply; and then they began to walk down the hill
together.

They had walked half way home, he stepping a little in
advance,--because he was still angry with her, or angry rather with
himself in that he could not bring himself to scold her properly,--and
she following close behind his shoulder, when he stopped suddenly and
asked her a question which came from the direction his thoughts were
taking at the moment.  'You are sure,' he said, 'that you are not
doing this because you expect George to come back to you?'

'Quite sure,' she said, bearing forward a moment, and answering him
in a whisper when she spoke.

'By my word, then, I can't understand it.  I can't indeed.  Has
Urmand done anything to offend you?'

'Nothing, uncle.'

'Nor said anything?'

'Not a word; uncle.  I am not offended.  Of course I am much obliged
to him.  Only I don't love him.'

'By my faith I don't understand it.  I don't indeed.  It is sheer
nonsense, and you must get over it.  I shouldn't be doing my duty if
I didn't tell you that you must get over it.  He will be here again
in another ten days, and you must have thought better of it by that
time.  You must indeed, Marie.'

Then they walked down the hill in silence together, each thinking
intently on the purpose of the other, but each altogether
misunderstanding the other.  Michel Voss was assured--as she had
twice implied as much--that she was altogether indifferent to his
son George.  What he might have said or done had she declared her
affection for her absent lover, he did not himself know.  He had not
questioned himself on that point.  Though his wife had told him that
Marie was ever thinking of George, he had not believed that it was
so.  He had no reason for disliking a marriage between his son and
his wife's niece.  When he had first thought that they were going to
be lovers, under his nose, without his permission,--going to
commence a new kind of life between themselves without so much as a
word spoken to him or by him,--he had found himself compelled to
interfere, compelled as a father and an uncle.  That kind of thing
could never be allowed to take place in a well-ordered house without
the expressed sanction of the head of the household.  He had
interfered,--rather roughly; and his son had taken him at his word.
He was sore now at his son's coldness to him, and was disposed to
believe that his son cared not at all for any one at Granpere.  His
niece was almost as dear to him as his son, and much more dutiful.
Therefore he would do the best he could for his niece.  Marie's
declaration that George was nothing to her,--that she did not think
of him,--was in accordance with his own ideas.  His wife had been
wrong.  His wife was usually wrong when any headwork was required.
There could be no good reason why Marie Bromar should not marry
Adrian Urmand.

But Marie, as she knew very well, had never declared that George
Voss was nothing to her,--that he was forgotten, or that her heart
was free.  He had gone from her and had forgotten her.  She was quite
sure of that.  And should she ever hear that he was married to some
one else,--as it was probable that she would hear some day,--then
she would be free again.  Then she might take this man or that,
if her friends wished it--and if she could bring herself to endure
the proposed marriage.  But at present her troth was plighted to
George Voss; and where her troth was given, there was her heart
also.  She could understand that such a circumstance, affecting one
of so little importance as herself, should be nothing to a man like
her uncle; but it was everything to her.  George had forgotten her,
and she had wept sorely over his want of constancy.  But though
telling herself that this certainly was so, she had declared to
herself that she would never be untrue till her want of truth had
been put beyond the reach of doubt.  Who does not know how hope
remains, when reason has declared that there is no longer ground for
hoping?

Such had been the state of her mind hitherto; but what would be the
good of entertaining hope, even if there were ground for hoping,
when, as was so evident, her uncle would never permit George and her
to be man and wife?  And did she not owe everything to her uncle?
And was it not the duty of a girl to obey her guardian?  Would not
all the world be against her if she refused this man?  Her mind was
tormented by a thousand doubts, when her uncle said another word to
her, just as they were entering the village.

'You will try and think better of it;--will you not, my dear?'  She
was silent.  'Come, Marie, you can say that you will try.  Will you
not try?'

'Yes, uncle,--I will try.'

Michel Voss went home in a good humour, for he felt that he had
triumphed; and poor Marie returned broken-hearted, for she was aware
that she had half-yielded.  She knew that her uncle was triumphant.



CHAPTER V.

When Edmond Greisse was back at Granpere he well remembered his
message, but he had some doubt as to the expediency of delivering
it.  He had to reflect in the first place whether he was quite sure
that matters were arranged between Marie and Adrian Urmand.  The
story had been told to him as being certainly true by Peter the
waiter.  And he had discussed the matter with other young men, his
associates in the place, among all of whom it was believed that
Urmand was certainly about to carry away the young woman with whom
they were all more or less in love.  But when, on his return to
Granpere, he had asked a few more questions, and had found that even
Peter was now in doubt on a point as to which he had before been so
sure, he began to think that there would be some difficulty in
giving his message.  He was not without some little fear of Marie,
and hesitated to tell her that he had spread the report about her
marriage.  So he contented himself with simply announcing to her
that George Voss intended to visit his old home.

'Does my uncle know?' Marie asked.

'No;--you are to tell him,' said Greisse.

'I am to tell him!  Why should I tell him?  You can tell him.'

'But George said that I was to let you know, and that you would tell
your uncle.'  This was quite unintelligible to Marie; but it was
clear to her that she could make no such announcement, after the
conversation which she had had with her uncle.  It was quite out of
the question that she should be the first to announce George's
return, when she had been twice warned on that Sunday afternoon not
to think of him.  'You had better let my uncle know yourself,' she
said, as she walked away.  But young Greisse, knowing that he was
already in trouble, and feeling that he might very probably make it
worse, held his peace.  When therefore one morning George Voss
showed himself at the door of the inn, neither his father nor Madame
Voss expected him.

But his father was kind to him, and his mother-in-law hovered round
him with demonstrations of love and gratitude, as though much were
due to him for coming back at all.  'But you expected me,' said
George.

'No, indeed,' said his father.  'We did not expect you now any more
than on any other day since you left us.'

'I sent word by Edmond Greisse,' said George.  Edmond was
interrogated, and declared that he had forgotten to give the
message.  George was too clever to pursue the matter any farther,
and when he first met Marie Bromar, there was not a word said
between them beyond what might have been said between any young
persons so related, after an absence of twelve months.  George Voss
was very careful to make no demonstration of affection for a girl
who had forgotten him, and who was now, as he believed, betrothed to
another man; and Marie was determined that certainly no sign of the
old love should first be shown by her.  He had come back,--perhaps
just in time.  He had returned just at the moment in which something
must be decided.  She had felt how much there was in the little word
which she had spoken to her uncle.  When a girl says that she will
try to reconcile herself to a man's overtures, she has almost
yielded.  The word had escaped her without any such meaning on her
part,--had been spoken because she had feared to continue to
contradict her uncle in the full completeness of a positive refusal.
She had regretted it as soon as it had been spoken, but she could
not recall it.  She had seen in her uncle's eye and had heard in the
tone of his voice for how much that word had been taken;--but it had
gone forth from her mouth, and she could not now rob it of its
meaning.  Adrian Urmand was to be back at Granpere in a few days--in
ten days Michel Voss had said; and there were those ten days for her
in which to resolve what she would do.  Now, as though sent from
heaven, George had returned, in this very interval of time.  Might
it not be that he would help her out of her difficulty?  If he would
only tell her to remain single for his sake, she would certainly
turn her back upon her Swiss lover, let her uncle say what he might.
She would make no engagement with George unless with her uncle's
sanction; but a word, a look of love, would fortify her against that
other marriage.

George, she thought, had come back a man more to be worshipped than
ever, as far as appearance went.  What woman could doubt for a
moment between two such men?  Adrian Urmand was no doubt a pretty
man, with black hair, of which he was very careful, with white
hands, with bright small dark eyes which were very close together,
with a thin regular nose, a small mouth, and a black moustache,
which he was always pointing with his fingers.  It was impossible to
deny that he was good-looking after a fashion; but Marie despised
him in her heart.  She was almost bigger than he was, certainly
stronger, and had no aptitude for the city niceness and POINT-DEVICE
fastidiousness of such a lover.  George Voss had come back, not
taller than when he had left them, but broader in the shoulders, and
more of a man.  And then he had in his eye, and in his beaked nose,
and his large mouth, and well-developed chin, that look of command,
which was the peculiar character of his father's face, and which
women, who judge of men by their feelings rather than their
thoughts, always love to see.  Marie, if she would consent to marry
Adrian Urmand, might probably have her own way in the house in
everything; whereas it was certain enough that George Voss, wherever
he might be, would desire to have his way.  But yet there needed not
a moment, in Marie's estimation, to choose between the two.  George
Voss was a real man; whereas Adrian Urmand, tried by such a
comparison, was in her estimation simply a rich trader in want of a
wife.

In a day or two the fatted calf was killed, and all went happily
between George and his father.  They walked together up into the
mountains, and looked after the wood-cutting, and discussed the
prospects of the inn at Colmar.  Michel was disposed to think that
George had better remain at Colmar, and accept Madame Faragon's
offer.  'If you think that the house is worth anything, I will give
you a few thousand francs to set it in order; and then you had
better agree to allow her so much a year for her life.'  He probably
felt himself to be nearly as young a man as his son; and then
remember too that he had other sons coming up, who would be able to
carry on the house at Granpere when he should be past his work.
Michel was a loving, generous-hearted man, and all feeling of anger
with his son was over before they had been together two days.  'You
can't do better, George,' he said.  'You need not always stay away
from us for twelve months, and I might take a turn over the
mountain, and get a lesson as to how you do things at Colmar.  If
ten thousand francs will help you, you shall have them.  Will that
make things go straight with you?'  George Voss thought the sum
named would make things go very straight; but as the reader knows,
he had another matter near to his heart.  He thanked his father; but
not in the joyous thoroughly contented tone that Michel had
expected.  'Is there anything wrong about it?' Michel said in that
sharp tone which he used when something had suddenly displeased him.

'There is nothing wrong; nothing wrong at all,' said George slowly.
'The money is much more than I could have expected.  Indeed I did
not expect any.'

'What is it then?'

'I was thinking of something else.  Tell me, father; is it true that
Marie is going to be married to Adrian Urmand?'

'What makes you ask?'

'I heard a report of it,' said George.  'Is it true?'

The father reflected a moment what answer he should give.  It did
not seem to him that George spoke of such a marriage as though the
rumour of it had made him unhappy.  The question had been asked
almost with indifference.  And then the young man's manner to Marie,
and Marie's manner to him, during the last two days had made him
certain that he had been right in supposing that they had both
forgotten the little tenderness of a year ago.  And Michel had
thoroughly made up his mind that it would be well that Marie should
marry Adrian.  He believed that he had already vanquished Marie's
scruples.  She had promised 'to try and think better of it,' before
George's return; and therefore was he not justified in regarding the
matter as almost settled?  'I think that they will be married,' said
he to his son.

'Then there is something in it?'

'O, yes; there is a great deal in it.  Urmand is very eager for it,
and has asked me and her aunt, and we have consented.'

'But has he asked her?'

'Yes; he has done that too,' said Michel.

'And what answer did he get?'

'Well;--I don't know that it would be fair to tell that.  Marie is
not a girl likely to jump into a man's arms at the first word.  But
I think there is no doubt that they will be betrothed before Sunday
week.  He is to be here again on Wednesday.'

'She likes him, then?'

'O, yes; of course she likes him.'  Michel Voss had not intended to
say a word that was false.  He was anxious to do the best in his
power for both his son and his niece.  He thoroughly understood that
it was his duty as a father and a guardian to start them well in the
world, to do all that he could for their prosperity, to feed their
wants with his money, as a pelican feeds her young with blood from
her bosom.  Had he known the hearts of each of them, could he have
understood Marie's constancy, or the obstinate silent strength of
his son's disposition, he would have let Adrian Urmand, with his
business and his house at Basle, seek a wife in any other quarter
where he listed, and would have joined together the hands of these two
whom he loved, with a paternal blessing.  But he did not understand.
He thought that he saw everything when he saw nothing;--and now he was
deceiving his son; for it was untrue that Marie had any such 'liking'
for Adrian Urmand as that of which George had spoken.

'It is as good as settled, then?' said George, not showing by any
tone of his voice the anxiety with which the question was asked.

'I think it is as good as settled,' Michel answered.  Before they
got back to the inn, George had thanked his father for his liberal
offer, had declared that he would accede to Madame Faragon's
proposition, and had made his father understand that he must return
to Colmar on the next Monday,--two days before that on which Urmand
was expected at Granpere.

The Monday came, and hitherto there had been no word of explanation
between George and Marie.  Every one in the house knew that he was
about to return to Colmar, and every one in the house knew that he
had been entirely reconciled to his father.  Madame Voss had asked
some question about him and Marie, and had been assured by her
husband that there was nothing in that suspicion.  'I told you from
the beginning,' said he, 'that there was nothing of that sort.  I
only wish that George would think of marrying some one, now that he
is to have a large house of his own over his head.'

George had determined a dozen times that he would, and a dozen times
that he would not, speak to Marie about her coming marriage,
changing his mind as often as it was formed.  Of what use was it to
speak to her? he would say to himself.  Then again he would resolve
that he would scorch her false heart by one withering word before he
went.  Chance at last arranged it for him.  Before he started he
found himself alone with her for a moment, and it was almost
impossible that he should not say something.  Then he did speak.

'They tell me you are going to be married, Marie.  I hope you will
be happy and prosperous.'

'Who tells you so?'

'It is true at any rate, I suppose.'

'Not that I know of.  If my uncle and aunt choose to dispose of me,
I cannot help it.'

'It is well for girls to be disposed of sometimes.  It saves them a
world of trouble.'

'I don't know what you mean by that, George;--whether it is intended
to be ill-natured.'

'No, indeed.  Why should I be ill-natured to you?  I heartily wish
you to be well and happy.  I daresay M. Urmand will make you a good
husband.  Good-bye, Marie.  I shall be off in a few minutes.  Will
you not say farewell to me?'

'Farewell, George.'

'We used to be friends, Marie.'

'Yes;--we used to be friends.'

'And I have never forgotten the old days.  I will not promise to
come to your marriage, because it would not make either of us happy,
but I shall wish you well.  God bless you, Marie.'  Then he put his
arm round her and kissed her, as he might have done to a sister,--as
it was natural that he should do to Marie Bromar, regarding her as a
cousin.  She did not speak a word more, and then he was gone!

She had been quite unable to tell him the truth.  The manner in
which he had first addressed her made it impossible for her to tell
him that she was not engaged to marry Adrian Urmand,--that she was
determined, if possible, to avoid the marriage, and that she had no
love for Adrian Urmand.  Had she done so, she would in so doing have
asked him to come back to her.  That she should do this was
impossible.  And yet as he left her, some suspicion of the truth,
some half-formed idea of the real state of the man's mind in
reference to her, flashed across her own.  She seemed to feel that
she was specially unfortunate, but she felt at the same time that
there was no means within her reach of setting things right.  And
she was as convinced as ever she had been, that her uncle would
never give his consent to a marriage between her and George Voss.
As for George himself, he left her with an assured conviction that
she was the promised bride of Adrian Urmand.



CHAPTER VI.

The world seemed very hard to Marie Bromar when she was left alone.
Though there were many who loved her, of whose real affection she
had no doubt, there was no one to whom she could go for assistance.
Her uncle in this matter was her enemy, and her aunt was completely
under her uncle's guidance.  Madame Voss spoke to her often in these
days of the coming of Adrian Urmand, but the manner of her speaking
was such that no comfort could be taken from it.  Madame Voss would
risk an opinion as to the room which the young man ought to occupy,
and the manner in which he should be fed and entertained.  For it
was thoroughly understood that he was coming on this occasion as a
lover and not as a trader, and that he was coming as the guest of
Michel Voss, and not as a customer to the inn.  'I suppose he can
take his supper like the other people,' Marie said to her aunt.  And
again, when the question of wine was mooted, she was almost saucy.
'If he's thirsty,' she said, 'what did for him last week, will do
for him next week:  and if he's not thirsty, he had better leave it
alone.'  But girls are always allowed to be saucy about their
lovers, and Madame Voss did not count this for much.

Marie was always thinking of those last words which had been spoken
between her and George, and of the kiss that he had given her.  'We
used to be friends,' he had said, and then he had declared that he
had never forgotten old days.  Marie was quick, intelligent, and
ready to perceive at half a glance,--to understand at half a word,
as is the way with clever women.  A thrill had gone through her as
she heard the tone of the young man's voice, and she had half told
herself all the truth.  He had not quite ceased to think of her.
Then he went, without saying the other one word that would have been
needful, without even looking the truth into her face.  He had gone,
and had plainly given her to understand that he acceded to this
marriage with Adrian Urmand.  How was she to read it all?  Was there
more than one way in which a wounded woman, so sore at heart, could
read it?  He had told her that though he loved her still, it did not
suit him to trouble himself with her as a wife; and that he would
throw upon her head the guilt of having been false to their old
vows.  Though she loved him better than all the world, she despised
him for his thoughtful treachery.  In her eyes it was treachery.  He
must have known the truth.  What right had he to suppose that she
would be false to him,--he, who had never known her to lie to him?
And was it not his business, as a man, to speak some word, to ask
some question, by which, if he doubted, the truth might be made
known to him?  She, a woman, could ask no question.  She could speak
no word.  She could not renew her assurances to him, till he should
have asked her to renew them.  He was either false, or a traitor, or
a coward.  She was very angry with him;--so angry that she was
almost driven by her anger to throw herself into Adrian's arms.  She
was the more angry because she was full sure that he had not
forgotten his old love,--that his heart was not altogether changed.
Had it appeared to her that the sweet words of former days had
vanished from his memory, though they had clung to hers,--that he
had in truth learned to look upon his Granpere experiences as the
simple doings of his boyhood,--her pride would have been hurt, but
she would have been angry with herself rather than with him.  But it
had not been so.  The respectful silence of his sojourn in the house
had told her that it was not so.  The tremor in his voice as he
reminded her that they once had been friends had plainly told her
that it was not so.  He had acknowledged that they had been
betrothed, and that the plight between them was still strong; but,
wishing to be quit of it, he had thrown the burden of breaking it
upon her.

She was very wretched, but she did not go about the house with
downcast eyes or humble looks, or sit idle in a corner with her
hands before her.  She was quick and eager in the performance of her
work, speaking sharply to those who came in contact with her.  Peter
Veque, her chief minister, had but a poor time of it in these days;
and she spoke an angry word or two to Edmond Greisse.  She had, in
truth, spoken no words to Edmond Greisse that were not angry since
that ill-starred communication of which he had only given her the
half.  To her aunt she was brusque, and almost ill-mannered.

'What is the matter with you, Marie?' Madame Voss said to her one
morning, when she had been snubbed rather rudely by her niece.
Marie in answer shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.  'If you
cannot put on a better look before M. Urmand comes, I think he will
hardly hold to his bargain,' said Madame Voss, who was angry.

'Who wants him to hold to his bargain?' said Marie sharply.  Then
feeling ill-inclined to discuss the matter with her aunt, she left
the room.  Madame Voss, who had been assured by her husband that
Marie had no real objection to Adrian Urmand, did not understand it
all.

'I am sure Marie is unhappy,' she said to her husband when he came
in at noon that day.

'Yes,' said he.  'It seems strange, but it is so, I fancy, with the
best of our young women.  Her feeling of modesty--of bashfulness if
you will--is outraged by being told that she is to admit this man as
her lover.  She won't make the worse wife on that account, when he
gets her home.'

Madame Voss was not quite sure that her husband was right.  She had
not before observed young women to be made savage in their daily
work by the outrage to their modesty of an acknowledged lover.  But,
as usual, she submitted to her husband.  Had she not done so, there
would have come that glance from the corner of his eye, and that
curl in his lip, and that gentle breath from his nostril, which had
become to her the expression of imperious marital authority.
Nothing could be kinder, more truly affectionate, than was the heart
of her husband towards her niece.  Therefore Madame Voss yielded,
and comforted herself by an assurance that as the best was being
done for Marie, she need not subject herself to her husband's
displeasure by contradiction or interference.

Michel Voss himself said little or nothing to his niece at this
time.  She had yielded to him, making him a promise that she would
endeavour to accede to his wishes, and he felt that he was bound in
honour not to trouble her farther, unless she should show herself to
be disobedient when the moment of trial came.  He was not himself at
ease, he was not comfortable at heart, because he knew that Marie
was avoiding him.  Though she would still stand behind his chair at
supper,--when for a moment she would be still,--she did not put her
hands upon his head, nor did she speak to him more than the nature
of her service required.  Twice he tried to induce her to sit with
them at table, as though to show that her position was altered now
that she was about to become a bride; but he was altogether
powerless to effect any such change as this.  No words that could
have been spoken would have induced Marie to seat herself at the
table, so well did she understand all that such a change in her
habits would have seemed to imply.  There was now hardly one person
in the supper-room of the hotel who did not instinctively understand
the reason which made Michel Voss anxious that his niece should sit
down, and that other reason which made her sternly refuse to comply
with his request.  So, day followed day, and there was but little
said between the uncle and the niece, though heretofore--up to a
time still within a fortnight of the present day--the whole business
of the house had been managed by little whispered conferences
between them.  'I think we'll do so and so, uncle;' or, 'Just you
manage it yourself, Marie.'  Such and such-like words had passed
every morning and evening, with an understanding between them full
and complete.  Now each was afraid of the other, and everything was
astray.

But Marie was still gentle with the children:  when she could be
with them for half an hour, she would sit with them on her lap, or
clustering round, kissing them and saying soft words to them,--even
softer in her affection than had been her wont.  They understood as
well as everybody else that something was wrong,--that there was to
be some change as to Marie which perhaps would not be a change for
the better; that there was cause for melancholy, for close kissing
as though such kissing were in preparation for parting, and for soft
strokings with their little hands as though Marie were to be pitied
for that which was about to come upon her.  'Isn't somebody coming
to take you away?' little Michel asked her, when they were quite
alone.  Marie had not known how to answer him.  She had therefore
embraced him closely, and a tear fell upon his face.  'Ah,' he said,
'I know somebody is coming to take you away.  Will not papa help
you?'  She had not spoken; but for the moment she had taken courage,
and had resolved that she would help herself.

At length the day was there on which Adrian Urmand was to come.  It
was his purpose to travel by Mulhouse and Remiremont, and Michel
Voss drove over to the latter town to fetch him.  It was felt by
every one--it could not be but felt--that there was something
special in his coming.  His arrival now was not like the arrival of
any one else.  Marie, with all her resolution that it should be like
usual arrivals at the inn, could not avoid the making of some
difference herself.  A better supper was prepared than usual; and,
at the last moment, she herself assisted in preparing it.  The young
men clustered round the door of the hotel earlier than usual to
welcome the new-comer.  M. le Cure was there with a clean white
collar, and with his best hat.  Madame Voss had changed her gown,
and appeared in her own little room before her husband returned
almost in her Sunday apparel.  She had said a doubtful word to
Marie, suggesting a clean ribbon, or an altered frill.  Marie had
replied only by a look.  She would not have changed a pin for
Urmand's coming, had all Granpere come round her to tell her that it
was needful.  If the man wanted more to eat than was customary, let
him have it.  It was not for her to measure her uncle's hospitality.
But her ribbons and her pins were her own.

The carriage was driving up to the door, and Michel with his young
friend descended among the circle of expectant admirers.  Urmand was
rich, always well dressed, and now he was to be successful in love.
He had about him a look as of a successful prosperous lover, as he
jumped out of the little carriage with his portmanteau in his hand,
and his greatcoat with its silk linings open at the breast.  There
was a consciousness in him and in every one there that he had not
come now to buy linen.  He made his way into the little room where
Madame Voss was standing up, waiting for him, and was taken by the
hand by her.  Michel Voss soon followed them.

'And where is Marie?' Michel asked.

An answer came from some one that Marie was upstairs.  Supper would
soon be ready, and Marie was busy.  Then Michel sent up an order by
Peter that Marie should come down.  But Marie did not come down.
'She had gone to her own room,' Peter said.  Then there came a frown
on Michel's brow.  Marie had promised to try, and this was not
trying.  He said no more till they went up to supper.  There was
Marie standing as usual at the soup tureen.  Urmand walked up to
her, and they touched each other's hand; but Marie said never a
word.  The frown on Michel's brow was very black, but Marie went on
dispensing her soup.



CHAPTER VII.

Adrian Urmand, in spite of his white hands and his well-combed locks
and the silk lining to his coat, had so much of the spirit of a man
that he was minded to hold his head well up before the girl whom he
wished to make his wife.  Michel during that drive from Remiremont
had told him that he might probably prevail.  Michel had said a
thousand things in favour of his niece and not a word to her
prejudice; but he had so spoken, or had endeavoured so to speak, as
to make Urmand understand that Marie could only be won with
difficulty, and that she was perhaps unaccountably averse to the
idea of matrimony.  'She is like a young filly, you know, that
starts and plunges when she is touched,' he had said.  'You think
there is nobody else?' Urmand had asked.  Then Michel Voss had
answered with confidence, 'I am sure there is nobody else.'  Urmand
had listened and said very little; but when at supper he saw that
the uncle was ruffled in his temper and sat silent with a black
brow, that Madame Voss was troubled in spirit, and that Marie
dispensed her soup without vouchsafing a look to any one, he felt
that it behoved him to do his best, and he did it.  He talked freely
to Madame Voss, telling her the news from Basle,--how at length he
thought the French trade was reviving, and how all the Swiss
authorities were still opposed to the German occupation of Alsace;
and how flax was likely to be dearer than ever he had seen it; and
how the travelling English were fewer this year than usual, to the
great detriment of the innkeepers.  Every now and then he would say
a word to Marie herself, as she passed near him, speaking in a
cheery tone and striving his best to dispel a black silence which on
the present occasion would have been specially lugubrious.  Upon the
whole he did his work well, and Michel Voss was aware of it; but
Marie Bromar entertained no gentle thought respecting him.  He was
not wanted there, and he ought not to have come.  She had given him
an answer, and he ought to have taken it.  Nothing, she declared to
herself, was meaner than a man who would go to a girl's parents or
guardians for support, when the girl herself had told him that she
wished to have nothing to do with him.  Marie had promised that she
would try, but every feeling of her heart was against the struggle.

After supper Michel with his young friend sat some time at the
table, for the innkeeper had brought forth a bottle of his best
Burgundy in honour of the occasion.  When they had eaten their
fruit, Madame Voss left the room, and Michel and Adrian were soon
alone together.  'Say nothing to her till to-morrow,' said Michel in
a low voice.

'I will not,' said Adrian.  'I do not wonder that she should be put
out of face if she knows why I have come.'

'Of course she knows.  Give her to-night and to-morrow, and we will
see how it is to be.'  At this time Marie was up-stairs with the
children, resolute that nothing should induce her to go down till
she should be sure that their visitor had gone to his chamber.
There were many things about the house which it was her custom to
see in their place before she went to her rest, and nobody should
say that she neglected her work because of this dressed-up doll; but
she would wait till she was sure of him,--till she was sure of her
uncle also.  In her present frame of mind she could not have spoken
to the doll with ordinary courtesy.  What she feared was, that her
uncle should seek her up-stairs.

But Michel had some idea that her part in the play was not an easy
one, and was minded to spare her for that night.  But she had
promised to try, and she must be reminded of her promise.  Hitherto
she certainly had not tried.  Hitherto she had been ill-tempered,
petulant, and almost rude.  He would not see her himself this
evening, but he would send a message to her by his wife.  'Tell her
from me that I shall expect to see smiles on her face to-morrow,'
said Michel Voss.  And as he spoke there certainly were no smiles on
his own.

'I suppose she is flurried,' said Madame Voss.

'Ah, flurried!  That may do for to-night.  I have been very good to
her.  Had she been my own, I could not have been kinder.  I have
loved her just as if she were my own.  Of course I look now for the
obedience of a child.'

'She does not mean to be undutiful, Michel.'

'I do not know about meaning.  I like reality, and I will have it
too.  I consulted herself, and was more forbearing than most fathers
would be.  I talked to her about it, and she promised me that she
would do her best to entertain the man.  Now she receives him and me
with an old frock and a sulky face.  Who pays for her clothes?  She
has everything she wants,--just as a daughter, and she would not
take the trouble to change her dress to grace my friend,--as you
did, as any daughter would!  I am angry with her.'

'Do not be angry with her.  I think I can understand why she did not
put on another frock.'

'So can I understand.  I can understand well enough.  I am not a
fool.  What is it she wants, I wonder?  What is it she expects?
Does she think some Count from Paris is to come and fetch her?'

'Nay, Michel, I think she expects nothing of that sort.'

'Then let her behave like any other young woman, and do as she is
bid.  He is not old or ugly, or a sot, or a gambler.  Upon my word
and honour I can't conceive what it is that she wants.  I can't
indeed.'  It was perhaps the fault of Michel Voss that he could not
understand that a young woman should live in the same house with
him, and have a want which he did not conceive.  Poor Marie!  All
that she wanted now, at this moment, was to be let alone!

Madame Voss, in obedience to her husband's commands, went up to
Marie and found her sitting in the children's room, leaning with her
head on her hand and her elbow on the table, while the children were
asleep around her.  She was waiting till the house should be quiet,
so that she could go down and complete her work.  'O, is it you,
Aunt Josey?' she said.  'I am waiting till uncle and M. Urmand are
gone, that I may go down and put away the wine and the fruit.'

'Never mind that to-night, Marie.'

'O yes, I will go down presently.  I should not be happy if the
things were not put straight.  Everything is about the house
everywhere.  We need not, I suppose, become like pigs because M.
Urmand has come from Basle.'

'No; we need not be like pigs,' said Madame Voss.  'Come into my
room a moment, Marie.  I want to speak to you.  Your uncle won't be
up yet.'  Then she led the way, and Marie followed her.  'Your uncle
is becoming angry, Marie, because--'

'Because why?  Have I done anything to make him angry?'

'Why are you so cross to this young man?'

'I am not cross, Aunt Josey.  I went on just the same as I always
do.  If Uncle Michel wants anything else, that is his fault;--not
mine.'

'Of course you know what he wants, and I must say that you ought to
obey him.  You gave him a sort of a promise, and now he thinks that
you are breaking it.'

'I gave him no promise,' said Marie stoutly.

'He says that you told him that you would at any rate be civil to M.
Urmand.'

'And I have been civil,' said Marie.

'You did not speak to him.'

'I never do speak to anybody,' said Marie.  'I have got something to
think of instead of talking to the people.  How would the things go,
if I took to talking to the people, and left everything to that
little goose, Peter?  Uncle Michel is unreasonable,--and unkind.'

'He means to do the best by you in his power.  He wants to treat you
just as though you were his daughter.'

'Then let him leave me alone.  I don't want anything to be done.  If
I were his daughter he would not grudge me permission to stop at
home in his house.  I don't want anything else.  I have never
complained.'

'But, my dear, it is time that you should be settled in the world.'

'I am settled.  I don't want any other settlement,--if they will
only let me alone.'

'Marie,' said Madame Voss after a short pause, 'I sometimes think
that you still have got George Voss in your head.'

'Is it that, Aunt Josey, that makes my uncle go on like this?' asked
Marie.

'You do not answer me, child.'

'I do not know what answer you want.  When George was here, I hardly
spoke to him.  If Uncle Michel is afraid of me, I will give him my
solemn promise never to marry any one without his permission.'

'George Voss will never come back for you,' said Madame Voss.

'He will come when I ask him,' said Marie, flashing round upon her
aunt with all the fire of her bright eyes.  'Does any one say that I
have done anything to bring him to me?  If so, it is false, whoever
says it.  I have done nothing.  He has gone away, and let him stay.
I shall not send for him.  Uncle Michel need not be afraid of me,
because of George.'

By this time Marie was speaking almost in a fury of passion, and her
aunt was almost subdued by her.  'Nobody is afraid of you, Marie,'
she said.

'Nobody need be.  If they will let me alone, I will do no harm to
any one.'

'But, Marie, you would wish to be married some day.'

'Why should I wish to be married?  If I liked him, I would take him,
but I don't.  O, Aunt Josey, I thought you would be my friend!'

'I cannot be your friend, Marie, if you oppose your uncle.  He has
done everything for you, and he must know best what is good for you.
There can be no reason against M. Urmand, and if you persist in
being so unruly, he will only think that it is because you want
George to come back for you.'

'I care nothing for George,' said Marie, as she left the room;
'nothing at all--nothing.'

About half-an-hour afterwards, listening at her own door, she heard
the sound of her uncle's feet as he went to his room, and knew that
the house was quiet.  Then she crept forth, and went about her
business.  Nobody should say that she neglected anything because of
this unhappiness.  She brushed the crumbs from the long table, and
smoothed the cloth for the next morning's breakfast; she put away
bottles and dishes, and she locked up cupboards, and saw that the
windows and the doors were fastened.  Then she went down to her
books in the little office below stairs.  In the performance of her
daily duty there were entries to be made and figures to be adjusted,
which would have been done in the course of the evening, had it not
been that she had been driven upstairs by fear of her lover and her
uncle.  But by the time that she took herself up to bed, nothing had
been omitted.  And after the book was closed she sat there, trying
to resolve what she would do.  Nothing had, perhaps, given her so
sharp a pang as her aunt's assurance that George Voss would not come
back to her, as her aunt's suspicion that she was looking for his
return.  It was not that she had been deserted, but that others
should be able to taunt her with her desolation.  She had never
whispered the name of George to any one since he had left Granpere,
and she thought that she might have been spared this indignity.  'If
he fancies I want to interfere with him,' she said to herself,
thinking of her uncle, and of her uncle's plans in reference to his
son, 'he will find that he is mistaken.'  Then it occurred to her
that she would be driven to accept Adrian Urmand to prove that she
was heart-whole in regard to George Voss.

She sat there, thinking of it till the night was half-spent, and
when she crept up cold to bed, she had almost made up her mind that
it would be best for her to do as her uncle wished.  As for loving
the man, that was out of the question.  But then would it not be
better to do without love altogether?



CHAPTER VIII.

'How is it to be?' said Michel to his niece the next morning.  The
question was asked downstairs in the little room, while Urmand was
sitting at table in the chamber above waiting for the landlord.
Michel Voss had begun to feel that his visitor would be very heavy
on hand, having come there as a visitor and not as a man of
business, unless he could be handed over to the woman-kind.  But no
such handing over would be possible, unless Marie would acquiesce.
'How is it to be?' Michel asked.  He had so prepared himself that he
was ready in accordance with a word or a look from his niece either
to be very angry, thoroughly imperious, and resolute to have his way
with the dependent girl, or else to be all smiles, and kindness, and
confidence, and affection.  There was nothing she should not have,
if she would only be amenable to reason.

'How is what to be, Uncle Michel?' said Marie.

The landlord thought that he discovered an indication of concession
in his niece's voice, and began immediately to adapt himself to the
softer courses.  'Well, Marie, you know what it is we all wish.  I
hope you understand that we love you well, and think so much of you,
that we would not intrust you to any one living, who did not bear a
high character and seem to deserve you.'  He was looking into
Marie's face as he spoke, and saw that she was soft and thoughtful
in her mood, not proud and scornful as she had been on the preceding
evening.  'You have grown up here with us, Marie, till it has almost
come upon us with surprise that you are a beautiful young woman,
instead of a great straggling girl.'

'I wish I was a great straggling girl still.'

'Do not say that, my darling.  We must all take the world as it is,
you know.  But here you are, and of course it is my duty and your
aunt's duty--' it was always a sign of high good humour on the part
of Michel Voss, when he spoke of his wife as being anybody in the
household--'my duty and your aunt's duty to see and do the best for
you.'

'You have always done the best for me in letting me be here.'

'Well, my dear, I hope so.  You had to be here, and you fell into
this way of life naturally.  But sometimes, when I have seen you
waiting on the people about the house, I've thought it wasn't quite
right.'

'I think it was quite right.  Peter couldn't do it all, and he'd be
sure to make a mess of it.'

'We must have two Peters; that's all.  But as I was saying, that
kind of thing was natural enough before you were grown up, and had
become--what shall I say?--such a handsome young woman.'  Marie
laughed, and turned up her nose and shook her head; but it may be
presumed that she received some comfort from her uncle's
compliments.  'And then I began to see, and your aunt began to see,
that it wasn't right that you should spend your life handing soup to
the young men here.'

'It is Peter who always hands the soup to the young men.'

'Well, well; but you are waiting upon them, and upon us.'

'I trust the day is never to come, uncle, when I'm to be ashamed of
waiting upon you.'  When he heard this, he put his arm round her and
kissed her.  Had he known at that moment what her feelings were in
regard to his son, he would have recommended Adrian Urmand to go
back to Basle.  Had he known what were George's feelings, he would
at once have sent for his son from Colmar.

'I hope you may give me my pipe and my cup of coffee when I'm such
an old fellow that I can't get up to help myself.  That's the sort
of reward we look forward to from those we love and cherish.  But,
Marie, when we see you as you are now--your aunt and I--we feel that
this kind of thing shouldn't go on.  We want the world to know that
you are a daughter to us, not a servant.'

'O, the world--the world, uncle!  Why should we care for the world?'

'We must care, my dear.  And you yourself, my dear--if this went on
for a few years longer, you yourself would become very tired of it.
It isn't what we should like for you, if you were our own daughter.
Can't you understand that?'

'No, I can't.'

'Yes, my dear, yes.  I'm sure you do.  Very well.  Then there comes
this young man.  I am not a bit surprised that he should fall in
love with you--because I should do it myself if I were not your
uncle.'  Then she caressed his arm.  How was she to keep herself
from caressing him, when he spoke so sweetly to her?  'We were not a
bit surprised when he came and told us how it was.  Nobody could
have behaved better.  Everybody must admit that.  He spoke of you to
me and to your aunt as though you were the highest lady in the
land.'

'I don't want any one to speak of me as though I were a high lady.'

'I mean in the way of respect, my dear.  Every young woman must wish
to be treated with respect by any young man who comes after her.
Well;--he told us that it was the great wish of his life that you
should be his wife.  He's a man who has a right to look for a wife,
because he can keep a wife.  He has a house, and a business, and
ready money.'

'What's all that, uncle?'

'Nothing;--nothing at all.  No more than that,'--saying which Michel
Voss threw his right hand and arm loosely abroad;--'no more than
that, if he were not himself well-behaved along with it.  We want to
see you married to him,--your aunt and I,--because we are sure that
he will be a good husband to you.'

'But if I don't love him, Uncle Michel?'

'Ah, my dear; that's where I think it is that you are dreaming, and
will go on dreaming till you've lost yourself, unless your aunt and
I interfere to prevent it.  Love is all very well.  Of course you
must love your husband.  But it doesn't do for young women to let
themselves be run away with by romantic ideas;--it doesn't, indeed,
my dear.  I've heard of young women who've fallen in love with
statues and men in armour out of poetry, and grand fellows that they
put into books, and there they've been waiting, waiting, waiting,
till some man in armour should come for them.  The man in armour
doesn't come.  But sometimes there comes somebody who looks like a
man in armour, and that's the worst of all.'

'I don't want a man in armour, Uncle Michel.'

'No, I daresay not.  But the truth is, you don't know what you want.
The proper thing for a young woman is to get herself well settled,
if she has the opportunity.  There are people who think so much of
money, that they'd give a child almost to anybody as long as he was
rich.  I shouldn't like to see you marry a man as old as myself.'

'I shouldn't care how old he was if I loved him.'

'Nor to a curmudgeon,' continued Michel, not caring to notice the
interruption, 'nor to an ill-tempered fellow, or one who gambled, or
one who would use bad words to you.  But here is a young man who has
no faults at all.'

'I hate people who have no faults,' said Marie.

'Now you must give him an answer to-day or to-morrow.  You remember
what you promised me when we were coming home the other day.'  Marie
remembered her promise very well, and thought that a great deal more
had been made of it than justice would have permitted.  'I don't
want to hurry you at all, only it makes me so sad at heart when my
own girl won't come and say a kind word to me and give me a kiss
before we part at night.  I thought so much of that last night,
Marie, I couldn't sleep for thinking of it.'  On hearing this, she
flung her arms round his neck and kissed him on each cheek and on
his lips.  'I get to feel so, Marie, if there's anything wrong
between you and me, that I don't know what I'm doing.  Will you do
this for me, my dear?  Come and sit at table with us this evening,
and make one of us.  At any rate, come and show that we don't want
to make a servant of you.  Then we'll put off the rest of it till
to-morrow.'  When such a request was made to her in such words, how
could she not accede to it?  She had no alternative but to say that
she would do in this respect as he would have her.  She smiled, and
nodded her head, and kissed him again.  'And, Marie darling, put on
a pretty frock,--for my sake.  I like to see you gay and pretty.'
Again she nodded her head, and again she kissed him.  Such requests,
so made, she felt that it would be impossible she should refuse.

And yet when she came to think of it as she went about the house
alone, the granting of such requests was in fact yielding in
everything.  If she made herself smart for this young man, and sat
next him, and smiled, and talked to him, conscious as she would
be--and he would be also--that she was so placed that she might become
his wife, how afterwards could she hold her ground?  And if she were
really resolute to hold her ground, would it not be much better that
she should do so by giving up no point, even though her uncle's
anger should rise hot against her?  But now she had promised her
uncle, and she knew that she could not go back from her word.  It
would be better for her, she told herself, to think no more about
it.  Things must arrange themselves.  What did it matter whether she
were wretched at Basle or wretched at Granpere?  The only thing that
could give a charm to her life was altogether out of her reach.

After this conversation, Michel went upstairs to his young friend,
and within a quarter of an hour had handed him over to his wife.  It
was of course understood now that Marie was not to be troubled till
the time came for her to sit down at table with her smart frock.
Michel explained to his wife the full amount of his success, and
acknowledged that he felt that Marie was already pretty nearly
overcome.

'She'll try to be pleasant for my sake this evening,' he said, 'and
so she'll fall into the way of being intimate with him; and when he
asks her to-morrow she'll be forced to take him.'

It never occurred to him, as he said this, that he was forming a
plan for sacrificing the girl he loved.  He imagined that he was
doing his duty by his niece thoroughly, and was rather proud of his
own generosity.  In the afternoon Adrian Urmand was taken out for a
drive to the ravine by Madame Voss.  They both, no doubt, felt that
this was very tedious; but they were by nature patient--quite unlike
Michel Voss or Marie--and each of them was aware that there was a
duty to be done.  Adrian therefore was satisfied to potter about the
ravine, and Madame Voss assured him at least a dozen times that it
was the dearest wish of her heart to call him her nephew-in-law.

At last the time for supper came.  Throughout the day Marie had said
very little to any one after leaving her uncle.  Ideas flitted
across her mind of various modes of escape.  What if she were to run
away--to her cousin's house at Epinal; and write from thence to say
that this proposed marriage was impossible?  But her cousin at
Epinal was a stranger to her, and her uncle had always been to her
the same as a father.  Then she thought of going to Colmar, of
telling the whole truth to George, and of dying when he refused
her--as refuse her he would.  But this was a dream rather than a plan.
Or how would it be if she went to her uncle now at once, while the
young man was away at the ravine, and swore to him that nothing on
earth should induce her to marry Adrian Urmand?  But brave as Marie
was, she was afraid to do this.  He had told her how he suffered
when they two did not stand well together, and she feared to be
accused by him of unkindness and ingratitude.  And how would it be
with her if she did accept the man?  She was sufficiently alive to
the necessities of the world to know that it would be well to have a
home of her own, and a husband, and children if God would send them.
She understood quite as well as Michel Voss did that to be head-waiter
at the Lion d'Or was not a career in life of which she could have
reason to be proud.  As the afternoon went on she was in great
doubt.  She spread the cloth, and prepared the room for supper,
somewhat earlier than usual, knowing that she should require some
minutes for her toilet.  It was necessary that she should explain to
Peter that he must take upon himself some self-action upon this
occasion, and it may be doubted whether she did this with perfect
good humour.  She was angry when she had to look for him before she
commenced her operations, and scolded him because he could not
understand without being told why she went away and left him twenty
minutes before the bell was rung.

As soon as the bell was heard through the house, Michel Voss, who
was waiting below with his wife in a quiet unusual manner,
marshalled the way upstairs.  He had partly expected that Marie
would join them below, and was becoming fidgety lest she should
break away from her engagement.  He went first, and then followed
Adrian and Madame Voss together.  The accustomed guests were all
ready, because it had come to be generally understood that this
supper was to be as it were a supper of betrothal.  Madame Voss had
on her black silk gown.  Michel had changed his coat and his cravat.
Adrian Urmand was exceedingly smart.  The dullest intellect could
perceive that there was something special in the wind.  The two old
ladies who were lodgers in the house came out from their rooms five
minutes earlier than usual, and met the cortege from downstairs in
the passage.

When Michel entered the room he at once looked round for Marie.
There she was standing at the soup-tureen with her back to the
company.  But he could see that there hung down some ribbon from her
waist, that her frock was not the one she had worn in the morning,
and that in the article of her attire she had kept her word with
him.  He was very awkward.  When one of the old ladies was about
to seat herself in the chair next to Adrian--in preparation for
which it must be admitted that Marie had made certain wicked
arrangements--Michel first by signs and afterwards with audible words,
intended to be whispered, indicated to the lady that she was required
to place herself elsewhere.  This was hard upon the lady, as her own
table-napkin and a cup out of which she was wont to drink were
placed at that spot.  Marie, standing at the soup-tureen, heard it
all and became very spiteful.  Then her uncle called to her:

'Marie, my dear, are you not coming?'

'Presently, uncle,' replied Marie, in a clear voice, as she
commenced to dispense the soup.

She ladled out all the soup without once turning her face towards
the company, then stood for a few moments as if in doubt, and after
that walked boldly up to her place.  She had intended to sit next to
her uncle, opposite to her lover, and there had been her chair.  But
Michel had insisted on bringing the old lady round to the seat that
Marie had intended for herself, and so had disarranged all her
plans.  The old lady had simpered and smiled and made a little
speech to M. Urmand, which everybody had heard.  Marie, too, had
heard it all.  But the thing had to be done, and she plucked up her
courage and did it.  She placed herself next to her lover, and as
she did so, felt that it was necessary that she should say something
at the moment:

'Here I am, Uncle Michel; but you'll find you'll miss me, before
supper is over.'

'There is somebody would much rather have you than his supper,' said
the horrid old lady opposite.

Then there was a pause, a terrible pause.

'Perhaps it used to be so when young men came to sup with you, years
ago; but nowadays men like their supper,' said Marie, who was driven
on by her anger to a ferocity which she could not restrain.

'I did not mean to give offence,' said the poor old lady meekly.

Marie, as she thought of what she had said, repented so bitterly
that she could hardly refrain from tears.

'There is no offence at all,' said Michel angrily.

'Will you allow me to give you a little wine?' said Adrian, turning
to his neighbour.

Marie bowed her head, and held her glass, but the wine remained in
it to the end of the supper, and there it was left.

When it was all over, Michel felt that it had not been a success.
With the exception of her savage speech to the disagreeable old
lady, Marie had behaved well.  She was on her mettle, and very
anxious to show that she could sit at table with Adrian Urmand,
and be at her ease.  She was not at her ease, but she made a bold
fight--which was more than was done by her uncle or her aunt.  Michel
was unable to speak in his ordinary voice or with his usual authority,
and Madame Voss hardly uttered a word.  Urmand, whose position was
the hardest of all, struggled gallantly, but was quite unable to
keep up any continued conversation.  The old lady had been
thoroughly silenced, and neither she nor her sister again opened
their mouth.  When Madame Voss rose from her chair in order that
they might all retire, the consciousness of relief was very great.

For that night Marie's duty to her uncle was done.  So much had been
understood.  She was to dress herself and sit down to supper, and
after that she was not to be disturbed again till the morrow.  On
the next morning she was to be subjected to the grand trial.  She
understood this so well that she went about the house fearless on
that evening--fearless as regarded the moment, fearful only as
regarded the morrow.

'May I ask one question, dear?' said her aunt, coming to her after
she had gone to her own room.  'Have you made up your mind?'

'No,' said Marie; 'I have not made up my mind.'

Her aunt stood for a moment looking at her, and then crept out of
the room.

In the morning Michel Voss was half-inclined to release his niece,
and to tell Urmand that he had better go back to Basle.  He could
see that the girl was suffering, and, after all, what was it that he
wanted?  Only that she should be prosperous and happy.  His heart
almost relented; and at one moment, had Marie come across him, he
would have released her.  'Let it go on,' he said to himself, as he
took up his cap and stick, and went off to the woods.  'Let it go
on.  If she finds to-day that she can't take him, I'll never say
another word to press her.'  He went up to the woods after
breakfast, and did not come back till the evening.

During breakfast Marie did not show herself at all, but remained
with the children.  It was not expected that she should show
herself.  At about noon, as soon as her uncle had started, her aunt
came to her and asked her whether she was ready to see M. Urmand.
'I am ready,' said Marie, rising from her seat, and standing upright
before her aunt.

'And where will you see him, dear?'

'Wherever he pleases,' said Marie, with something that was again
almost savage in her voice.

'Shall he come up-stairs to you?'

'What, here?'

'No; he cannot come here.  You might go into the little sitting-room.'

'Very well.  I will go into the little sitting room.'  Then without
saying another word she got up, left the room, and went along the
passage to the chamber in question.  It was a small room, furnished,
as they all thought at Granpere, with Parisian elegance, intended
for such visitors to the hotel as might choose to pay for the charm
and luxury of such an apartment.  It was generally found that
visitors to Granpere did not care to pay for the luxury of this
Parisian elegance, and the room was almost always empty.  Thither
Marie went, and seated herself at once on the centre of the red,
stuffy, velvet sofa.  There she sat, perfectly motionless, till
there came a knock at the door.  Marie Bromar was a very handsome
girl, but as she sat there, all alone, with her hands crossed on her
lap, with a hard look about her mouth, with a frown on her brow, and
scorn and disdain for all around her in her eyes, she was as little
handsome as it was possible that she should make herself.  She
answered the knock, and Adrian Urmand entered the room.  She did not
rise, but waited till he had come close up to her.  Then she was the
first to speak.  'Aunt Josey tells me that you want to see me,' she
said.

Urmand's task was certainly not a pleasant one.  Though his temper
was excellent, he was already beginning to think that he was being
ill-used.  Marie, no doubt, was a very fine girl, but the match that
he offered her was one at which no young woman of her rank in all
Lorraine or Alsace need have turned up her nose.  He had been
invited over to Granpere specially that he might spend his time in
making love, and he had found the task before him very hard and
disagreeable.  He was afflicted with all the ponderous notoriety of
an acknowledged suitor's position, but was consoled with none of the
usual comforts.  Had he not been pledged to make the attempt, he
would probably have gone back to Basle; as it was, he was compelled
to renew his offer.  He was aware that he could not leave the house
without doing so.  But he was determined that one more refusal
should be the last.

'Marie,' said he, putting out his hand to her, 'doubtless you know
what it is that I would say.'

'I suppose I do,' she answered.

'I hope you do not doubt my true affection for you.'

She paused a moment before she replied.  'I have no reason to doubt
it,' she said.

'No indeed.  I love you with all my heart.  I do truly.  Your uncle
and aunt think it would be a good thing for both of us that we
should be married.  What answer will you make me, Marie?'  Again she
paused.  She had allowed him to take her hand, and as he thus asked
his question he was standing opposite to her, still holding it.
'You have thought about it, Marie, since I was here last?'

'Yes; I have thought about it.'

'Well, dearest?'

'I suppose it had better be so,' said she, standing up and
withdrawing her hand.

She had accepted him; and now it was no longer possible for him to
go back to Basle except as a betrothed man.  She had accepted him;
but there came upon him a wretched feeling that none of the triumph
of successful love had come to him.  He was almost disappointed,--or
if not disappointed, was at any rate embarrassed.  But it was
necessary that he should immediately conduct himself as an engaged
man.  'And you will love me, Marie?' he said, as he again took her
by the hand.

'I will do my best,' she said.

Then he put his arm round her waist and kissed her, and she did not
turn away her face from him.  'I will do my best also to make you
happy,' he said.

'I am sure you will.  I believe you.  I know that you are good.'
There was another pause during which he stood, still embracing her.
'I may go now; may I not?' she said.

'You have not kissed me yet, Marie?'  Then she kissed him; but the
touch of her lips was cold, and he felt that there was no love in
them.  He knew, though he could hardly define the knowledge to
himself, that she had accepted him in obedience to her uncle.  He
was almost angry, but being cautious and even-tempered by nature he
repressed the feeling.  He knew that he must take her now, and that
he had better make the best of it.  She would, he was sure, be a
good wife, and the love would probably come in time.

'We shall be together this evening; shall we not?' he asked.

'O, yes,' said Marie, 'if you please.'  It was, as she knew, only
reasonable now that they should be together.  Then he let her go,
and she walked off to her room.



CHAPTER IX.

'I suppose it had better be so,' Marie Bromar had said to her lover,
when in set form he made his proposition.  She had thought very much
about it, and had come exactly to that state of mind.  She did
suppose that it had better be so.  She knew that she did not love
the man.  She knew also that she loved another man.  She did not
even think that she should ever learn to love Adrian Urmand.  She
had neither ambition in the matter, nor even any feeling of prudence
as regarded herself.  She was enticed by no desire of position, or
love of money.  In respect to all her own feelings about herself she
would sooner have remained at the Lion d'Or, and have waited upon
the guests day after day, and month after month.  But yet she had
supposed 'that it had better be so.'  Her uncle wished it,--wished
it so strongly that she believed it would be impossible that she
could remain an inmate in his house, unless she acceded to his
wishes.  Her aunt manifestly thought that it was her duty to accept
the man, and could not understand how so manifest a duty, going hand
in hand as it did with so great an advantage, should be made a
matter of doubt.  She had not one about her to counsel her to hold
by her own feelings.  It was the practice of the world around her
that girls in such matters should do as they were bidden.  And then,
stronger than all, there was the indifference to her of the man she
loved!

Marie Bromar was a fine, high-spirited, animated girl; but it must
not be thought that she was a highly educated lady, or that time had
been given to her amidst all her occupations, in which she could
allow her mind to dwell much on feelings of romance.  Her life had
ever been practical, busy, and full of action.  As is ever the case
with those who have to do chiefly with things material, she was
thinking more frequently of the outer wants of those around her,
than of the inner workings of her own heart and personal
intelligence.  Would the bread rise well?  Would that bargain she
had made for poultry suffice for the house?  Was that lot of wine
which she had persuaded her uncle to buy of a creditable quality?
Were her efforts for increasing her uncle's profits compatible with
satisfaction on the part of her uncle's guests?  Such were the
questions which from day to day occupied her attention and filled
her with interest.  And therefore her own identity was not strong to
her, as it is strong to those whose business permits them to look
frequently into themselves, or whose occupations are of a nature to
produce such introspection.  If her head ached, or had she lamed her
hand by any accident, she would think more of the injury to the
household arising from her incapacity than of her own pain.  It is
so, reader, with your gardener, your groom, or your cook, if you
will think of it.  Till you tell them by your pity that they are the
sufferers, they will think that it is you who are most affected by
their ailments.  And the man who loses his daily wage because he is
ill complains of his loss and not of his ailment.  His own identity
is half hidden from him by the practical wants of his life.

Had Marie been disappointed in her love without the appearance of
any rival suitor, no one would have ever heard of her love.  Had
George Voss married, she would have gone on with her work without a
sign of outward sorrow; or had he died, she would have wept for him
with no peculiar tears.  She did not expect much from the world
around her, beyond this, that the guests should not complain about
their suppers as long as the suppers provided were reasonably good.
Had no great undertaking been presented to her, the performance of
no heavy task demanded from her, she would have gone on with her
work without showing even by the altered colour of her cheek that
she was a sufferer.  But this other man had come,--this Adrian
Urmand; and a great undertaking was presented to her, and the
performance of a heavy task was demanded from her.  Then it was
necessary that there should be identity of self and introspection.
She had to ask herself whether the task was practicable, whether its
performance was within the scope of her powers.  She told herself at
first that it was not to be done; that it was one which she would
not even attempt.  Then as she looked at it more frequently, as she
came to understand how great was the urgency of her uncle; as she
came to find, in performing that task of introspection, how
unimportant a person she was herself, she began to think that the
attempt might be made.  'I suppose it had better be so,' she had
said.  What was she that she should stand in the way of so many
wishes?  As she had worked for her bread in her uncle's house at
Granpere, so would she work for her bread in her husband's house
at Basle.  No doubt there were other things to be joined to her
work,--things the thought of which dismayed her.  She had fought
against them for a while; but, after all, what was she, that she
should trouble the world by fighting?  When she got to Basle she
would endeavour to see that the bread should rise there, and the
wine be sufficient, and the supper such as her husband might wish
it to be.

Was it not the manifest duty of every girl to act after this
fashion?  Were not all marriages so arranged in the world around
her?  Among the Protestants of Alsace, as she knew, there was some
greater latitude of choice than was ever allowed by the stricter
discipline of Roman Catholic education.  But then she was a Roman
Catholic, as was her aunt; and she was too proud and too grateful to
claim any peculiar exemption from the Protestantism of her uncle.
She had resolved during those early hours of the morning that 'it
had better be so.'  She thought that she could go through with it
all, if only they would not tease her, and ask her to wear her
Sunday frock, and force her to sit down with them at table.  Let
them settle the day--with a word or two thrown in by herself to
increase the distance--and she would be absolutely submissive, on
condition that nothing should be required of her till the day should
come.  There would be a bad week or two then while she was being
carried off to her new home; but she had looked forward and had told
herself that she would fill her mind with the care of one man's
house, as she had hitherto filled it with the care of the house of
another man.

'So it is all right,' said her aunt, rushing up to her with warm
congratulations, ready to flatter her, prone to admire her.  It
would be something to have a niece married to Adrian Urmand, the
successful young merchant of Basle.  Marie Bromar was already in her
aunt's eyes something different from her former self.

'I hope so, aunt.'

'Hope so; but it is so, you have accepted him?'

'I hope it is right, I mean.'

'Of course it is right' said Madame Voss.  'How can it be wrong for
a girl to accept the man whom all her friends wish her to marry?  It
must be right.  And your uncle will be so happy.'

'Dear uncle!'

'Yes, indeed.  He has been so good; and it has made me wretched to
see that he has been disturbed.  He has been as anxious that you
should be settled well, as though you had been his own.  And this
will be to be settled well.  I am told that M. Urmand's house is one
of those which look down upon the river from near the church; the
very best position in all the town.  And it is full of everything,
they say.  His father spared nothing for furniture when he was
married.  And they say that his mother's linen was quite a sight to
be seen.  And then, Marie, everybody acknowledges that he is such a
nice-looking young man!'

But it was not a part of Marie's programme to be waked up to
enthusiasm--at any rate by her aunt.  She said little or nothing,
and would not even condescend to consider that interesting question,
of the day of the wedding.  'There is quite time enough for all
that, Aunt Josey,' she said, as she got up to go about her work.
Aunt Josey was almost inclined to resent such usage, and would have
done so, had not her respect for her niece been so great.

Michel did not return till near seven, and walking straight through
his wife's room to Marie's seat of office, came upon his niece
before he had seen any one else.  There was an angry look about his
brow, for he had been trying to teach himself that he was ill-used
by his niece, in spite of that half-formed resolution to release her
from persecution if she were still firm in her opposition to the
marriage.  'Well,' he said, as soon as he saw her,--'well, how is it
to be?'  She got off her stool, and coming close to him put up her
face to be kissed.  He understood it all in a moment, and the whole
tone and colour of his countenance was altered.  There was no man
whose face would become more radiant with satisfaction than that of
Michel Voss--when he was satisfied.  Please him--and immediately
there would be an effort on his part to please everybody around him.
'My darling, my own one,' he said, 'it is all right.'  She kissed
him again and pressed his arm, but said not a word.  'I am so glad,'
he exclaimed; 'I am so glad!'  And he knocked off his cap with his
hand, not knowing what he was doing.  'We shall have but a poor
house without you, Marie--a very poor house.  But it is as it ought
to be.  I have felt for the last year or two, as you have sprung up
to be such a woman among us, my dear, that there was only one place
fit for such a one.  It is proper that you should be mistress
wherever you are.  It has wounded me--I don't mind saying it now--it
has wounded me to see you waiting on the sort of people that come
here.'

'I have only been too happy, uncle, in doing it.'

'That's all very well; that's all very well, my dear.  But I am
older than you, and time goes quick with me.  I tell you it made me
unhappy.  I thought I wasn't doing my duty by you.  I was beginning
to know that you ought to have a house and servants of your own.
People say that it is a great match for you; but I tell them that it
is a great match for him.  Perhaps it is because you've been my own
in a way, but I don't see any girl like you round the country.'

'You shouldn't say such things to flatter me, Uncle Michel.'

'I choose to say what I please, and think what I please, about my
own girl,' he said, with his arm close wound round her.  'I say it's
a great match for Adrian Urmand, and I am quite sure that he will
not contradict me.  He has had sense enough to know what sort of a
young woman will make the best wife for him, and I respect him for
it.  I shall always respect Adrian Urmand because he has known
better than to take up with one of your town-bred girls, who never
learn anything except how to flaunt about with as much finery on
their backs as they can get their people to give them.  He might
have had the pick of them at Basle,--or at Strasbourg either, for
the matter of that; but he has thought my girl better than them all;
and I love him for it--so I do.  It was to be expected that a young
fellow with means to please himself should choose to have a
good-looking wife to sit at his table with him.  Who'll blame him for
that?  And he has found the prettiest in all the country round.  But
he has wanted something more than good looks,--and he has got a
great deal more.  Yes; I say it, I, Michel Voss, though I am your
uncle;--that he has got the pride of the whole country round.  My
darling, my own one, my child!'

All this was said with many interjections, and with sundry pauses in
the speech, during which Michel caressed his niece, and pressed her
to his breast, and signified his joy by all the outward modes of
expression which a man so demonstrative knows how to use.  This was
a moment of great triumph to him, because he had begun to despair of
success in this matter of the marriage, and had told himself on this
very morning that the affair was almost hopeless.  While he had been
up in the wood, he had asked himself how he would treat Marie in
consequence of her disobedience to him; and he had at last succeeded
in producing within his own breast a state of mind that was not
perhaps very reasonable, but which was consonant with his character.
He would let her know that he was angry with her,--very angry with
her; that she had half broken his heart by her obstinacy; but after
that she should be to him his own Marie again.  He would not throw
her off, because she disobeyed him.  He could not throw her off,
because he loved her, and knew of no way by which he could get rid
of his love.  But he would be very angry, and she should know of his
anger.  He had come home wearing a black cloud on his brow, and
intending to be black.  But all that was changed in a moment, and
his only thought now was how to give pleasure to this dear one.  It
is something to have a niece who brings such credit on the family!

Marie as she listened to his praise and his ecstasies, knowing by a
sure instinct every turn of his thoughts, tried to take joy to
herself in that she had given joy to him.  Though he was her uncle,
and had in fact been her master, he was actually the one real friend
whom she had made for herself in her life.  There had been a month
or two of something more than friendship with George Voss; but she
was too wise to look much at that now.  Michel Voss was the one
being in the world whom she knew best, of whom she thought most,
whose thoughts and wishes she had most closely studied, whose
interests were ever present to her mind.  Perhaps it may be said of
every human heart in a sound condition that it must be specially
true to some other one human heart; but it may certainly be so said
of every female heart.  The object may be changed from time to
time,--may be changed very suddenly, as when a girl's devotion is
transferred with the consent of all her friends from her mother to
her lover; or very slowly, as when a mother's is transferred from
her husband to some favourite child; but, unless self-worship be
predominant, there is always one friend to whom the woman's breast
is true,--for whom it is the woman's joy to offer herself in
sacrifice.  Now with Marie Bromar that one being had been her uncle.
She prospered, if he prospered.  His comfort was her comfort.  Even
when his palate was pleased, there was some gratification akin to
animal enjoyment on her part.  It was ease to her, that he should be
at his ease in his arm-chair.  It was mirth to her, that he should
laugh.  When he was contented she was satisfied.  When he was
ruffled she was never smooth.  Her sympathy with him was perfect;
and now that he was radiant with triumph, though his triumph came
from his victory over herself, she could not deny him the pleasure
of triumphing with him.

'Dear uncle,' she said, still caressing him, 'I am so glad that you
are pleased.'

'Of course it will be a poor house without you, Marie.  As for me,
it will be just as though I had lost my right leg and my right arm.
But what!  A man is not always to be thinking of himself.  To see
you treated by all the world as you ought to be treated,--as I
should choose that my own daughter should be treated,--that is what
I have desired.  Sometimes when I've thought of it all when I've
been alone, I have been mad with myself for letting it go on as it
has done.'

'It has gone on very nicely, I think, Uncle Michel.'  She knew how
worse than useless it would be now to try and make him understand
that it would be better for them both that she should remain with
him.  She knew, to the moving of a feather, what she could do with
him and what she could not.  Her immediate wish was to enable him to
draw all possible pleasure from his triumph of the day, and
therefore she would say no word to signify that his glory was
founded on her sacrifice.

Then again came up the question of her position at supper, but there
was no difficulty in the arrangement made between them.  The one
gala evening of grand dresses--the evening which had been intended
to be a gala, but which had turned out to be almost funereal--was
over.  Even Michel Voss himself did not think it necessary that
Marie should come in to supper with her silk dress two nights
running; and he himself had found that that changing of his coat had
impaired his comfort.  He could eat his dinner and his supper in his
best clothes on Sunday, and not feel the inconvenience; but on other
occasions those unaccustomed garments were as heavy to him as a suit
of armour.  There was, therefore, nothing more said about clothes.
Marie was to dispense her soup as usual,--expressing a confident
assurance that if Peter were as yet to attempt this special branch
of duty, the whole supper would collapse,--and then she was to take
her place at the table, next to her uncle.  Everybody in the house,
everybody in Granpere, knew that the marriage had been arranged, and
the old lady who had been so dreadfully snubbed by Marie, had
forgiven the offence, acknowledging that Marie's position on that
evening had been one of difficulty.

But these arrangements had reference only to two days.  After two
days, Adrian was to return to Basle, and to be seen no more at
Granpere till he came to claim his bride.  In regard to the choice
of the day, Michel declared roundly that no constraint should be put
upon Marie.  She should have her full privileges, and no one should
be allowed to interfere with her.  On this point Marie had brought
herself to be almost indifferent.  A long engagement was a state of
things which would have been quite incompatible with such a
betrothal.  Any delay that could have been effected would have been
a delay, not of months, but of days,--or at most of a week or two.
She had made up her mind that she would not be afraid of her
wedding.  She would teach herself to have no dread either of the man
or of the thing.  He was not a bad man, and marriage in itself was
honourable.  She formed ideas also of some future true friendship
for her husband.  She would endeavour to have a true solicitude for
his interests, and would take care, at any rate, that nothing was
squandered that came into her hands.  Of what avail would it be to
her that she should postpone for a few days the beginning of a
friendship that was to last all her life?  Such postponement could
only be induced by a dread of the man, and she was firmly determined
that she would not dread him.  When they asked her, therefore, she
smiled and said very little.  What did her aunt think?

Her aunt thought that the marriage should be settled for the
earliest possible day,--though she never quite expressed her
thoughts.  Madame Voss, though she did not generally obtain much
credit for clear seeing, had a clearer insight to the state of her
niece's mind than had her husband.  She still believed that Marie's
heart was not with Adrian Urmand.  But, attributing perhaps no very
great importance to a young girl's heart, and fancying that she knew
that in this instance the young girl's heart could not have its own
way, she was quite in favour of the Urmand marriage.  And if they
were to be married, the sooner the better.  Of that she had no
doubt.  'It's best to have it over always as soon as possible,' she
said to her husband in private, nodding her head, and looking much
wiser than usual.

'I won't have Marie hurried,' said Michel.

'We had better say some day next month, my dear,' said Madame Voss,
again nodding her head.  Michel, struck by the peculiarity of her
voice, looked into her face, and saw the unaccustomed wisdom.  He
made no answer, but after a while nodded his head also, and went out
of the room a man convinced.  There were matters between women, he
thought, which men can never quite understand.  It would be very bad
if there should be any slip here between the cup and the lip; and,
no doubt, his wife was right.

It was Madame Voss at last who settled the day,--the 15th of
October, just four weeks from the present time.  This she did in
concert with Adrian Urmand, who, however, was very docile in her
hands.  Urmand, after he had been accepted, soon managed to bring
himself back to that state of mind in which he had before regarded
the possession of Marie Bromar as very desirable.  For some
four-and-twenty hours, during which he had thought himself to be
ill-used, and had meditated a retreat from Granpere, he had contrived
to teach himself that he might possibly live without her; but as soon
as he was accepted, and when the congratulations of the men and women
of Granpere were showered down upon him in quick succession,--so
that the fact that the thing was to be became assured to him,--he
soon came to fancy again that he was a man as successful in love as
he was in the world's good, and that this acquisition of Marie's
hand was a treasure in which he could take delight.  He undoubtedly
would be ready by the day named, and would go home and prepare
everything for Marie's arrival.

They were very little together as lovers during those two days, but
it was necessary that there should be an especial parting.  'She is
up-stairs in the little sitting-room,' Aunt Josey said; and up-stairs
to the little sitting-room Adrian Urmand went.

'I am come to say good-bye,' said Urmand.

'Good-bye, Adrian,' said Marie, putting both her hands in his, and
offering her cheek to be kissed.

'I shall come back with such joy for the 15th,' said he.

She smiled, and kissed his cheek, and still held his hand.
'Adrian,' she said.

'My love?'

'As I believe in the dear Jesus, I will do my best to be a good wife
to you.'  Then he took her in his arms, and kissed her close, and
went out of the room with tears streaming down his cheeks.  He knew
now that he was in truth a happy man, and that God had been good to
him in this matter of his future wife.



CHAPTER X.

'So your cousin Marie is to be married to Adrian Urmand, the young
linen-merchant at Basle,' said Madame Faragon one morning to George
Voss.  In this manner were the first assured tidings of the coming
marriage conveyed to the rival lover.  This occurred a day or two
after the betrothal, when Adrian was back at Basle.  No one at
Granpere had thought of writing an express letter to George on the
subject.  George's father might have done so, had the writing of
letters been a customary thing with him; but his correspondence was
not numerous, and such letters as he did write were short, and
always confined to matters concerning his trade.  Madame Voss had,
however, sent a special message to Madame Faragon, as soon as Adrian
had gone, thinking that it would be well that in this way George
should learn the truth.

It had been fully arranged by this time that George Voss was to be
the landlord of the hotel at Colmar on and from the first day of the
following year.  Madame Faragon was to be allowed to sit in the
little room downstairs, to scold the servants, and to make the
strangers from a distance believe that her authority was unimpaired.
She was also to receive a moderate annual pension in money in
addition to her board and lodging.  For these considerations, and on
condition that George Voss should expend a certain sum of money in
renewing the faded glories of the house, he was to be the landlord
in full enjoyment of all real power on the first of January
following.  Madame Faragon, when she had expressed her agreement to
the arrangement, which was indeed almost in all respects one of her
own creation, wept and wheezed and groaned bitterly.  She declared
that she would soon be dead, and so trouble him no more.
Nevertheless, she especially stipulated that she should have a new
arm-chair for her own use, and that the feather bed in her own
chamber should be renewed.

'So your cousin Marie is to be married to Adrian Urmand, the young
linen-merchant at Basle,' said Madame Faragon.

'Who says so?' demanded George.  He asked his question in a quiet
voice; but, though the news had reached him thus suddenly, he had
sufficient control over himself to prevent any plain expression of
his feelings.  The thing which had been told him had gone into his
heart like a knife; but he did not intend that Madame Faragon should
know that he had been wounded.

'It is quite true.  There is no doubt about it.  Stodel's man with
the roulage brought me word direct from your step-mother.'  George
immediately began to inquire within himself why Stodel's man with
the roulage had not brought some word direct to him, and answered
the question to himself not altogether incorrectly.  'O, yes,'
continued Madame Faragon, 'it is quite true--on the 15th of October.
I suppose you will be going over to the wedding.'  This she said in
her usual whining tone of small complaint, signifying thereby how
great would be the grievance to herself to be left alone at that
special time.

'I shall not go to the wedding,' said George.  'They can be married,
if they are to be married, without me.'

'They are to be married; you may be quite sure of that.'  Madame
Faragon's grievance now consisted in the amount of doubt which was
being thrown on the tidings which had been sent direct to her.  'Of
course you will choose to have a doubt, because it is I who tell
you.'

'I do not doubt it at all.  I think it is very likely.  I was well
aware before that my father wished it.'

'Of course he would wish it, George.  How should he not wish it?
Marie Bromar never had a franc of her own in her life, and it is not
to be expected that he, with a family of young children at his
heels, is to give her a dot.'

'He will give her something.  He will treat her as though she were a
daughter.'

'Then I think he ought not.  But your father was always a romantic,
headstrong man.  At any rate, there she is,--bar-maid, as we may
say, in the hotel,--much the same as our Floschen here; and, of
course, such a marriage as this is a great thing; a very great
thing, indeed.  How should they not wish it?'

'O, if she likes him--!'

'Like him?  Of course, she will like him.  Why should she not like
him?  Young, and good-looking, with a fine business, doesn't owe a
sou, I'll be bound, and with a houseful of furniture.  Of course,
she'll like him.  I don't suppose there is so much difficulty about
that.'

'I daresay not,' said George.  'I believe that women's likings go
after that fashion, for the most part.'

Madame Faragon, not understanding this general sarcasm against her
sex, continued the expression of her opinion about the coming
marriage.  'I don't suppose anybody will think of blaming Marie
Bromar for accepting the match when it was proposed to her.  Of
course, she would do as she was bidden, and could hardly be expected
to say that the man was above her.'

'He is not above her,' said George in a hoarse voice.

'Marie Bromar is nothing to you, George; nothing in blood; nothing
beyond a most distant cousin.  They do say that she has grown up
good-looking.'

'Yes;--she is a handsome girl.'

'When I remember her as a child she was broad and dumpy, and they
always come back at last to what they were as children.  But of
course M. Urmand only looks to what she is now.  She makes her hay
while the sun shines; but I hope the people won't say that your
father has caught him at the Lion d'Or, and taken him in.'

'My father is not the man to care very much what anybody says about
such things.'

'Perhaps not so much as he ought, George,' said Madame Faragon,
shaking her head.

After that George Voss went about the house for some hours, doing
his work, giving his orders, and going through the usual routine of
his day's business.  As he did so, no one guessed that his mind was
disturbed.  Madame Faragon had not the slightest suspicion that the
matter of Marie's marriage was a cause of sorrow to him.  She had
felt the not unnatural envy of a woman's mind in such an affair, and
could not help expressing it, although Marie Bromar was in some sort
connected with herself.  But she was sure that such an arrangement
would be regarded as a family triumph by George,--unless, indeed, he
should be inclined to quarrel with his father for over-generosity in
that matter of the dot.  'It is lucky that you got your little bit
of money before this affair was settled,' said she.

'It would not have made the difference of a copper sou,' said George
Voss, as he walked angrily out of the old woman's room.  This was in
the evening, after supper, and the greater part of the day had
passed since he had first heard the news.  Up to the present moment
he had endeavoured to shake the matter off from him, declaring to
himself that grief--or at least any outward show of grief--would be
unmanly and unworthy of him.  With a strong resolve he had fixed his
mind upon the affairs of his house, and had allowed himself to
meditate as little as might be possible.  But the misery, the agony,
had been then present with him during all those hours,--and had been
made the sharper by his endeavours to keep it down and banish it
from his thoughts.  Now, as he went out from Madame Faragon's room,
having finished all that it was his duty to do, he strolled into the
town, and at once began to give way to his thoughts.  Of course he
must think about it.  He acknowledged that it was useless for him to
attempt to get rid of the matter and let it be as though there were
no such persons in the world as Marie Bromar and Adrian Urmand.  He
must think about it; but he might so give play to his feelings that
no one should see him in the moments of his wretchedness.  He went
out, therefore, among the dark walks in the town garden, and there,
as he paced one alley after another in the gloom, he revelled in the
agony which a passionate man feels when the woman whom he loves is
to be given into the arms of another.

As he thought of his own life during the past year or fifteen
months, he could not but tell himself that his present suffering was
due in some degree to his own fault.  If he really loved this girl,
and if it had been his intention to try and win her for himself, why
had he taken his father at his word and gone away from Granpere?
And why, having left Granpere, had he taken no trouble to let her
know that he still loved her?  As he asked himself these questions,
he was hardly able himself to understand the pride which had driven
him away from his old home, and which had kept him silent so long.
She had promised him that she would be true to him.  Then had come
those few words from his father's mouth, words which he thought his
father should never have spoken to him, and he had gone away,
telling himself that he would come back and fetch her as soon as he
could offer her a home independently of his father.  If, after the
promises she had made to him, she would not wait for him without
farther words and farther vows, she would not be worth the having.
In going, he had not precisely told himself that there should be no
intercourse between them for twelve months; but the silence which he
had maintained, and his continued absence, had been the consequence
of the mood of his mind and the tenor of his purpose.  The longer he
had been away from Granpere without tidings from any one there, the
less possible had it been that he should send tidings from himself
to his old home.  He had not expected messages.  He had not expected
any letter.  But when nothing came, he told himself over and over
again that he too would be silent, and would bide his time.  Then
Edmond Greisse had come to Colmar, and brought the first rumour of
Adrian Urmand's proposal of marriage.

The reader will perhaps remember that George, when he heard this
first rumour, had at once made up his mind to go over to Granpere,
and that he went.  He went to Granpere partly believing, and partly
disbelieving Edmond's story.  If it were untrue, perhaps she might
say a word to him that would comfort him and give him new hope.  If
it were true, she would have to tell him so; and then he would say a
word to her that should tear her heart, if her heart was to be
reached.  But he would never let her know that she had torn his own
to rags!  That was the pride of his manliness; and yet he was so
boyish as not to know that it should have been for him to make those
overtures for a renewal of love, which he hoped that Marie would
make to him.  He had gone over to Granpere, and the reader will
perhaps again remember what had passed then between him and Marie.
Just as he was leaving her he had asked her whether she was to be
married to this man.  He had made no objection to such a marriage.
He had spoken no word of the constancy of his own affection.  In his
heart there had been anger against her because she had spoken no
such word to him,--as of course there was also in her heart against
him, very bitter and very hot.  If he wished her to be true to him,
why did he not say so?  If he had given her up, why did he come
there at all?  Why did he ask any questions about her marriage, if
on his own behalf he had no statement to make,--no assurance to
give?  What was her marriage, or her refusal to be married, to him?
Was she to tell him that, as he had deserted her, and as she could
not busy herself to overcome her love, therefore she was minded to
wear the willow for ever?  'If my uncle and aunt choose to dispose
of me, I cannot help it,' she had said.  Then he had left her, and
she had been sure that for him that early game of love was a game
altogether played out.  Now, as he walked along the dark paths of
the town garden, something of the truth came upon him.  He made no
excuse for Marie Bromar.  She had given him a vow, and should have
been true to her vow, so he said to himself a dozen times.  He had
never been false.  He had shown no sign of falseness.  True of
heart, he had remained away from her only till he might come and
claim her, and bring her to a house that he could call his own.
This also he told himself a dozen times.  But, nevertheless, there
was a very agony of remorse, a weight of repentance, in that he had
not striven to make sure of his prize when he had been at Granpere
before the marriage was settled.  Had she loved him as she ought to
have loved him, had she loved him as he loved her, there should have
been no question possible to her of marriage with another man.  But
still he repented, in that he had lost that which he desired, and
might perhaps have then obtained it for himself.

But the strong feeling of his breast, the strongest next to his
love, was a desire to be revenged.  He cared little now for his
father, little for that personal dignity which he had intended to
return by his silence, little for pecuniary advantages and
prudential motives, in comparison with his strong desire to punish
Marie for her perfidy.  He would go over to Granpere, and fall among
them like a thunderbolt.  Like a thunderbolt, at any rate, he
would fall upon the head of Marie Bromar.  The very words of her
love-promises were still firm in his memory, and he would see if
she also could be made to remember them.

'I shall go over to Granpere the day after to-morrow,' he said to
Madame Faragon, as he caught her just before she retired for the
night.

'To Granpere the day after to-morrow?  And why?'

'Well, I don't know that I can say exactly why.  I shall not be at
the marriage, but I should like to see them first.  I shall go the
day after to-morrow.'

And he went to Granpere on the day he fixed.



CHAPTER XI.

'Probably one night only, but I won't make any promise,' George had
said to Madame Faragon when she asked him how long he intended to
stay at Granpere.  As he took one of the horses belonging to the inn
and drove himself, it seemed to be certain that he would not stay
long.  He started all alone, early in the morning, and reached
Granpere about twelve o'clock.  His mind was full of painful
thoughts as he went, and as the little animal ran quickly down the
mountain road into the valley in which Granpere lies, he almost
wished that his feet were not so fleet.  What was he to say when he
got to Granpere, and to whom was he to say it?

When he reached the angular court along two sides of which the house
was built he did not at once enter the front door.  None of the
family were then about the place, and he could, therefore, go into
the stable and ask a question or two of the man who came to meet
him.  His father, the man told him, had gone up early to the
wood-cutting, and would not probably return till the afternoon.
Madame Voss was no doubt inside, as was also Marie Bromar.  Then the
man commenced an elaborate account of the betrothals.  There never
had been at Granpere any marriage that had been half so important
as would be this marriage; no lover coming thither had ever been
blessed with so beautiful and discreet a maiden, and no maiden of
Granpere had ever before had at her feet a lover at the same time so
good-looking, so wealthy, so sagacious, and so good-tempered.  The
man declared that Adrian was the luckiest fellow in the world in
finding such a wife, but his enthusiasm rose to the highest pitch
when he spoke of Marie's luck in finding such a husband.  There was
no end to the good with which she would be endowed--'linen,' said
the man, holding up his hands in admiration, 'that will last out all
her grandchildren at least!'  George listened to it all, and smiled,
and said a word or two--was it worth his while to come all the way
to Granpere to throw his thunderbolt at a girl who had been
captivated by promises of a chest full of house linen!

George told the man that he would go up to the wood-cutting after
his father; but before he was out of the court he changed his mind
and slowly entered the house.  Why should he go to his father?  What
had he to say to his father about the marriage that could not be
better said down at the house?  After all, he had but little ground
of complaint against his father.  It was Marie who had been untrue
to him, and it was on Marie's head that his wrath must fall.  No
doubt his father would be angry with him when he should have thrown
his thunderbolt.  It could not, as he thought, be hurled effectually
without his father's knowledge; but he need not tell his father the
errand on which he had come.  So he changed his mind, and went into
the inn.

He entered the house almost dreading to see her whom he was seeking.
In what way should he first express his wrath?  How should he show
her the wreck which by her inconstancy she had made of his
happiness?  His first words must, if possible, be spoken to her
alone; and yet alone he could hardly hope to find her.  And he
feared her.  Though he was so resolved to speak his mind, yet he
feared her.  Though he intended to fill her with remorse, yet he
dreaded the effect of her words upon himself.  He knew how strong
she could be, and how steadfast.  Though his passion told him every
hour, was telling him all day long, that she was as false as hell,
yet there was something in him of judgment, something rather of
instinct, which told him also that she was not bad, that she was a
firm-hearted, high-spirited, great-minded girl, who would have
reasons to give for the thing that she was doing.

He went through into the kitchen before he met any one, and there he
found Madame Voss with the cook and Peter.  Immediate explanations
had, of course, to be made as to his unexpected arrival;--questions
asked, and suggestions offered--'Came he in peace, or came he in
war?'  Had he come because he had heard of the betrothals?  He
admitted that it was so.  'And you are glad of it?' asked Madame
Voss.  'You will congratulate her with all your heart?'

'I will congratulate her certainly,' said George.  Then the cook and
Peter began with a copious flow of domestic eloquence to declare how
great a marriage this was for the Lion d'Or--how pleasing to the
master, how creditable to the village, how satisfactory to the
friends, how joyous to the bridegroom, how triumphant to the bride!
'No doubt she will have plenty to eat and drink, and fine clothes to
wear, and an excellent house over her head,' said George in his
bitterness.

'And she will be married to one of the most respectable young men in
all Switzerland,' said Madame Voss in a tone of much anger.  It was
already quite clear to Madame Voss, to the cook, and to Peter, that
George had not come over from Colmar simply to express his joyous
satisfaction at his cousin's good fortune.

He soon walked through into the little sitting-room, and his
step-mother followed him.  'George,' she said, 'you will displease
your father very much if you say anything unkind about Marie.'

'I know very well,' said he, 'that my father cares more for Marie
than he does for me.'

'That is not so, George.'

'I do not blame him for it.  She lives in the house with him, while
I live elsewhere.  It was natural that she should be more to him
than I am, after he had sent me away.  But he has no right to
suppose that I can have the same feeling that he has about this
marriage.  I cannot think it the finest thing in the world for all
of us that Marie Bromar should succeed in getting a rich young man
for her husband, who, as far as I can see, never had two ideas in
his head.'

'He is a most industrious young man, who thoroughly understands his
business.  I have heard people say that there is no one comes to
Granpere who can buy better than he can.'

'Very likely not.'

'And at any rate, it is no disgrace to be well off.'

'It is a disgrace to think more about that than anything else.  But
never mind.  It is no use talking about it, words won't mend it.'

'Why then have you come here now?'

'Because I want to see my father.'  Then he remembered how false was
this excuse; and remembered also how soon its falseness would
appear.  'Besides, though I do not like this match, I wish to see
Marie once again before her marriage.  I shall never see her after
it.  That is the reason why I have come.  I suppose you can give me
a bed.'

'O, yes, there are beds enough.'  After that there was some pause,
and Madame Voss hardly knew how to treat her step-son.  At last she
asked him whether he would have dinner, and an order was given to
Peter to prepare something for the young master in the small room.
And George asked after the children, and in this way the dreaded
subject was for some minutes laid on one side.

In the mean time, information of George's arrival had been taken
upstairs to Marie.  She had often wondered what sign he would make
when he should hear of her engagement.  Would he send her a word of
affection, or such customary present as would be usual between two
persons so nearly connected?  Would he come to her marriage?  And
what would be his own feelings?  She too remembered well, with
absolute accuracy, those warm, delicious, heavenly words of love
which had passed between them.  She could feel now the pressure of
his hand and the warmth of his kiss, when she swore to him that she
would be his for ever and ever.  After that he had left her, and for
a year had sent no token.  Then he had come again, and had simply
asked her whether she were engaged to another man; had asked with a
cruel indication that he at least intended that the old childish
words should be forgotten.  Now he was in the house again, and she
would have to hear his congratulations!

She thought for some quarter of an hour what she had better do, and
then she determined to go down to him at once.  The sooner the first
meeting was over the better.  Were she to remain away from him till
they should be brought together at the supper-table, there would
almost be a necessity for her to explain her conduct.  She would go
down to him and treat him exactly as she might have done, had there
never been any special love between them.  She would do so as
perfectly as her strength might enable her; and if she failed in
aught, it would be better to fail before her aunt than in the
presence of her uncle.  When she had resolved, she waited yet
another minute or two, and then she went down-stairs.

As she entered her aunt's room George Voss was sitting before the
stove, while Madame Voss was in her accustomed chair, and Peter was
preparing the table for his young master's dinner.  George arose
from his seat at once, and then came a look of pain across his face.
Marie saw it at once, and almost loved him the more because he
suffered.  'I am so glad to see you, George,' she said.  'I am so
glad that you have come.'

She had offered him her hand, and of course he had taken it.  'Yes,'
he said, 'I thought it best just to run over.  We shall be very busy
at the hotel before long.'

'Does that mean to say that you are not to be here for my marriage?'
This she said with her sweetest smile, making all the effort in her
power to give a gracious tone to her voice.  It was better, she
knew, to plunge at the subject at once.

'No,' said he.  'I shall not be here then.'

'Ah,--your father will miss you so much!  But if it cannot be, it is
very good of you to come now.  There would have been something sad
in going away from the old house without seeing you once more.  And
though Colmar and Basle are very near, it will not be the same as in
the dear old home;--will it, George?'  There was a touch about her
voice as she called him by his name, that nearly killed him.  At
that moment his hatred was strongest against Adrian.  Why had such
an upstart as that, a puny, miserable creature, come between him and
the only thing that he had ever seen in the guise of a woman that
could touch his heart?  He turned round with his back to the table
and his face to the stove, and said nothing.  But he was able, when
he no longer saw her, when her voice was not sounding in his ear, to
swear that the thunderbolt should be hurled all the same.  His
journey to Granpere should not be made for nothing.  'I must go
now,' she said presently.  'I shall see you at supper, shall I not,
George, when Uncle will be with us?  Uncle Michel will be so
delighted to find you.  And you will tell us of the new doings at
the hotel.  Good-bye for the present, George.'  Then she was gone
before he had spoken another word.

He eat his dinner, and smoked a cigar about the yard, and then said
that he would go out and meet his father.  He did go out, but did
not take the road by which he knew that his father was to be found.
He strolled off to the ravine, and came back only when it was dark.
The meeting between him and his father was kindly; but there was no
special word spoken, and thus they all sat down to supper.



CHAPTER XII.

It became necessary as George Voss sat at supper with his father and
Madame Voss that he should fix the time of his return to Colmar, and
he did so for the early morning of the next day but one.  He had
told Madame Faragon that he expected to stay at Granpere but one
night.  He felt, however, after his arrival that it might be
difficult for him to get away on the following day, and therefore he
told them that he would sleep two nights at the Lion d'Or, and then
start early, so as to reach the Colmar inn by mid-day.

'I suppose you find the old lady rather fidgety, George?' said
Michel Voss in high good humour.

George found it easier to talk about Madame Faragon and the hotel at
Colmar than he did of things at Granpere, and therefore became
communicative as to his own affairs.  Michel too preferred the
subject of the new doings at the house on the other side of the
Vosges.  His wife had given him a slight hint, doing her best, like
a good wife and discreet manager, to prevent ill-humour and hard
words.

'He feels a little sore, you know.  I was always sure there was
something.  But it was wise of him to come and see her, and it will
go off in this way.'

Michel swore that George had no right to be sore, and that if his
son did not take pride in such a family arrangement as this, he
should no longer be son of his.  But he allowed himself to be
counselled by his wife, and soon talked himself into a pleasant
mood, discussing Madame Faragon, and the horses belonging to the
Hotel de la Poste, and Colmar affairs in general.  There was a
certain important ground for satisfaction between them.  Everybody
agreed that George Voss had shown himself to be a steady man of
business in the affairs of the inn at Colmar.

Marie Bromar in the mean while went on with her usual occupation
round the room, but now and again came and stood at her uncle's
elbow, joining in the conversation, and asking a question or two
about Madame Faragon.  There was, perhaps, something of the guile of
the serpent joined to her dove-like softness.  She asked questions
and listened to answers--not that in her present state of mind she
could bring herself to take a deep interest in the affairs of Madame
Faragon's hotel, but because it suited her that there should be some
subject of easy conversation between her and George.  It was
absolutely necessary now that George should be nothing more to her
than a cousin and an acquaintance; but it was well that he should be
that and not an enemy.  It would be well too that he should know,
that he should think that he knew, that she was disturbed by no
remembrance of those words which had once passed between them.  At
last she trusted herself to a remark which perhaps she would not
have made had the serpent's guile been more perfect of its kind.

'Surely you must get a wife, George, as soon as the house is your
own.'

'Of course he will get a wife,' said the father.

'I hope he will get a good one,' said Madame Voss after a short
pause--which, however, had been long enough to make her feel it
necessary to say something.

George said never a word, but lifted his glass and finished his
wine.  Marie at once perceived that the subject was one on which she
must not venture to touch again.  Indeed, she saw farther than that,
and became aware that it would be inexpedient for her to fall into
any special or minute conversation with her cousin during his short
stay at Granpere.

'You'll go up to the woods with me tomorrow--eh, George?' said the
father.  The son of course assented.  It was hardly possible that he
should not assent.  The whole day, moreover, would not be wanted for
that purpose of throwing his thunderbolt; and if he could get it
thrown, it would be well that he should be as far away from Marie as
possible for the remainder of his visit.  'We'll start early, Marie,
and have a bit of breakfast before we go.  Will six be too early for
you, George, with your town ways?'  George said that six would not
be too early, and as he made the engagement for the morning he
resolved that he would if possible throw his thunderbolt that night.
'Marie will get us a cup of coffee and a sausage.  Marie is always
up by that time.'

Marie smiled, and promised that they should not be compelled to
start upon their walk with empty stomachs from any fault of hers.
If a hot breakfast at six o'clock in the morning could put her
cousin into a good humour, it certainly should not be wanting.

In two hours after supper George was with his father.  Michel was so
full of happiness and so confidential that the son found it very
difficult to keep silence about his own sorrow.  Had it not been
that with a half obedience to his wife's hints Michel said little
about Adrian, there must have been an explosion.  He endeavoured to
confine himself to George's prospects, as to which he expressed
himself thoroughly pleased.  'You see,' said he, 'I am so strong of
my years, that if you wished for my shoes, there is no knowing how
long you might be kept waiting.'

'It couldn't have been too long,' said George.

'Ah well, I don't believe you would have been impatient to put the
old fellow under the sod.  But I should have been impatient, I
should have been unhappy.  You might have had the woods, to be sure;
but it's hardly enough of a business alone.  Besides, a young man is
always more his own master away from his father.  I can understand
that.  The only thing is, George,--take a drive over, and see us
sometimes.'  This was all very well, but it was not quite so well
when he began to speak of Marie.  'It's a terrible loss her going,
you know, George; I shall feel it sadly.'

'I can understand that,' said George.

'But of course I had my duty to do to the girl.  I had to see that
she should be well settled, and she will be well settled.  There's a
comfort in that;--isn't there, George?'

But George could not bring himself to reply to this with good-humoured
zeal, and there came for a moment a cloud between the father and son.
But Michel was wise and swallowed his wrath, and in a minute or two
returned to Colmar and Madame Faragon.

At about half-past nine George escaped from his father and returned
to the house.  They had been sitting in the balcony which runs round
the billiard-room on the side of the court opposite to the front
door.  He returned to the house, and caught Marie in one of the
passages up-stairs, as she was completing her work for the day.  He
caught her close to the door of his own room and asked her to come
in, that he might speak a word to her.  English readers will perhaps
remember that among the Vosges mountains there is less of a sense of
privacy attached to bedrooms than is the case with us here in
England.  Marie knew immediately then that her cousin had not come
to Granpere for nothing,--had not come with the innocent intention
of simply pleasing his father,--had not come to say an ordinary word
of farewell to her before her marriage.  There was to be something
of a scene, though she could not tell of what nature the scene might
be.  She knew, however, that her own conduct had been right; and
therefore, though she would have avoided the scene, had it been
possible, she would not fear it.  She went into his room; and when
he closed the door, she smiled, and did not as yet tremble.

'Marie,' he said, 'I have come here on purpose to say a word or two
to you.'  There was no smile on her face as he spoke now.  The
intention to be savage was written there, as plainly as any purpose
was ever written on man's countenance.  Marie read the writing
without missing a letter.  She was to be rebuked, and sternly
rebuked;--rebuked by the man who had taken her heart, and then left
her;--rebuked by the man who had crushed her hopes and made it
absolutely necessary for her to give up all the sweet poetry of her
life, to forget her dreams, to abandon every wished-for prettiness
of existence, and confine herself to duties and to things material!
He who had so sinned against her was about to rid himself of the
burden of his sin by endeavouring to cast it upon her.  So much she
understood, but yet she did not understand all that was to come.
She would hear the rebuke as quietly as she might.  In the interest
of others she would do so.  But she would not fear him,--and she
would say a quiet word in defence of her own sex if there should be
need.  Such was the purport of her mind as she stood opposite to him
in his room.

'I hope they will be kind words,' she said.  'As we are to part so
soon, there should be none unkind spoken.'

'I do not know much about kindness,' he replied.  Then he paused and
tried to think how best the thunderbolt might be hurled.  'There is
hardly room for kindness where there was once so much more than
kindness; where there was so much more,--or the pretence of it.'
Then he waited again, as though he expected that she should speak.
But she would not speak at all.  If he had aught to say, let him say
it.  'Perhaps, Marie, you have in truth forgotten all the promises
you once made me?'  Though this was a direct question she would not
answer it.  Her words to him should be as few as possible, and the
time for such words had not come as yet.  'It suits you no doubt to
forget them now, but I cannot forget them.  You have been false to
me, and have broken my heart.  You have been false to me, when my
only joy on earth was in believing in your truth.  Your vow was for
ever and ever, and within one short year you are betrothed to
another man!  And why?--because they tell you that he is rich and
has got a house full of furniture!  You may prove to be a blessing
to his house.  Who can say?  On mine, you and your memory will be a
curse,--lasting all my lifetime!'  And so the thunderbolt had been
hurled.

And it fell as a thunderbolt.  What she had expected had not been at
all like to this.  She had known that he would rebuke her; but,
feeling strong in her own innocence and her own purity, knowing or
thinking that she knew that the fault had all been his, not
believing--having got rid of all belief--that he still loved her,
she had fancied that his rebuke would be unjust, cruel, but
bearable.  Nay; she had thought that she could almost triumph over
him with a short word of reply.  She had expected from him reproach,
but not love.  There was reproach indeed, but it came with an
expression of passion of which she had not known him to be capable.
He stood before her telling her that she had broken his heart, and,
as he told her so, his words were half choked by sobs.  He reminded
her of her promises, declaring that his own to her had ever remained
in full force.  And he told her that she, she to whom he had looked
for all his joy, had become a curse to him and a blight upon his
life.  There were thoughts and feelings too beyond all these that
crowded themselves upon her heart and upon her mind at the moment.
It had been possible for her to accept the hand of Adrian Urmand
because she had become assured that George Voss no longer regarded
her as his promised bride.  She would have stood firm against her
uncle and her aunt, she would have stood against all the world, had
it not seemed to her that the evidence of her cousin's indifference
was complete.  Had not that evidence been complete at all points, it
would have been impossible to her to think of becoming the wife of
another man.  Now the evidence on that matter which had seemed to
her to be so sufficient was all blown to the winds.

It is true that had all her feelings been guided by reason only, she
might have been as strong as ever.  In truth she had not sinned
against him.  In truth she had not sinned at all.  She had not done
that which she herself had desired.  She had not been anxious for
wealth, or ease, or position; but had, after painful thought,
endeavoured to shape her conduct by the wishes of others, and by her
ideas of duty, as duty had been taught to her.  O, how willingly
would she have remained as servant to her uncle, and have allowed M.
Urmand to carry the rich gift of his linen-chest to

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