‘If you would not mind it, M. Urmand,’ said George, ’I should like to take a walk with you.’

‘To take a walk?’

’If it would not be disagreeable.  Perhaps it would be well that you and I should have a few minutes of conversation.’

‘I will leave you together here,’ said the father, ’if you, George, will promise me that there shall be no violence.’  Urmand looked at the innkeeper as though he did not like the proposition, but Michel took no notice of his look.

‘There certainly shall be none on my part,’ said George.  ’I don’t know what M. Urmand’s feelings may be.’

‘O dear, no; nothing of the kind,’ said Urmand.  ’But I don’t exactly see what we are to talk about.’  Michel, however, paid no attention to this, but walked slowly out of the room.  ’I really don’t know what there is to say,’ continued Urmand, as he knocked the balls about with his cue.

’There is this to say.  That girl up there was induced to promise that she would be your wife, when she believed that—­I had forgotten her.’

‘O dear, no; nothing of the kind.’

’That is her story.  Go and ask her.  If it is so, or even if it suits her now to say so, you will hardly, as a man, endeavour to drive her into a marriage which she does not wish.  You will never do it, even if you do try.  Though you go on trying till you drive her mad, she will never be your wife.  But if you are a man, you will not continue to torment her, simply because you have got her uncle to back you.’

‘Who says she will never marry me?’

‘I say so.  She says so.’

‘We are betrothed to each other.  Why should she not marry me?’

’Simply because she does not wish it.  She does not love you.  Is not that enough?  She does love another man; me—­me—­me.  Is not that enough?  Heaven and earth!  I would sooner go to the galleys, or break stones upon the roads, than take a woman to my bosom who was thinking of some other man.’

‘That is all very fine.’

’Let me tell you, that the other thing, that which you propose to do, is by no means fine.  But I will not quarrel with you, if I can help it.  Will you go away and leave us at peace?  They say you are rich and have a grand house.  Surely you can do better than marry a poor innkeeper’s niece—­a girl that has worked hard all her life?’

‘I could do better if I chose,’ said Adrian Urmand.

’Then go and do better.  Do you not perceive that even my father is becoming tired of all the trouble you are making?  Surely you will not wait till you are turned out of the house?’

‘Who will turn me out of the house?’

’Marie will, and my father.  Do you think he’ll see her wither and droop and die, or perhaps go mad, in order that a promise may be kept to you?  Take the matter into your own hands at once, and say you will have no more to do with it.  That will be the manly way.’