‘Is that all you have to say, my friend?’
asked Urmand, assuming a voice that was intended to
be indifferent.
’Yes—that is all. But I mean
to do something more, if I am driven to it.’
’Very well. When I want advice from you,
I will come to you for it. And as for your doing,
I believe you are not master here as yet. Good-morning.’
So saying, Adrian Urmand left the room, and George
Voss in a few minutes followed him down the stairs.
The rest of the day was passed in gloom and wretchedness.
George hardly spoke to his father; but the two sat
at table together, and there was no open quarrel between
them. Urmand also sat with them, and tried to
converse with Michel and Madame Voss. But Michel
would say very little to him; and the mistress of
the house was so cowed by the circumstances of the
day, that she was hardly able to talk. Marie
still kept her room; and it was stated to them that
she was not well and was in bed. Her uncle had
gone to see her twice, but had made no report to any
one of what had passed between them.
It had come to be understood that George would sleep
there, at any rate for that night, and a bed had been
prepared for him. The party broke up very early,
for there was nothing in common among them to keep
them together. Madame Voss sat murmuring with
the priest for half an hour or so; but it seemed that
the gloom attendant upon the young lovers had settled
also upon M. le Cure. Even he escaped as early
as he could.
When George was about to undress himself there came
a knock at his door, and one of the servant-girls
put into his hand a scrap of paper. On it was
written, ’I will never marry him, never—never—
never; upon my honour!’
Michel Voss at this time was a very unhappy man.
He had taught himself to believe that it would be
a good thing that his niece should marry Adrian Urmand,
and that it was his duty to achieve this good thing
in her behalf. He had had it on his mind for
the last year, and had nearly brought it to pass.
There was, moreover, now, at this present moment,
a clear duty on him to be true to the young man who
with his consent, and indeed very much at his instance,
had become betrothed to Marie Bromar. The reader
will understand how ideas of duty, not very clearly
looked into or analysed, acted upon his mind.
And then there was always present to him a recurrence
of that early caution which had made him lay a parental
embargo upon anything like love between his son and
his wife’s niece. Without much thinking
about it,—for he probably never thought
very much about anything,—he had deemed
it prudent to separate two young people brought up
together, when they began, as he fancied, to be foolish.
An elderly man is so apt to look upon his own son
as a boy, and on a girl who has grown up under his
nose as little more than a child! And then George
