‘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.
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
