On the next morning Michel Voss and his son met in the kitchen, and found Marie already there.  ‘Well, my girl,’ said Michel, as he patted Marie’s shoulder, and kissed her forehead, ’you’ve been up getting a rare breakfast for these fellows, I see.’  Marie smiled, and made some good-humoured reply.  No one could have told by her face that there was anything amiss with her.  ’It’s the last favour of the kind he’ll ever have at your hands,’ continued Michel, ’and yet he doesn’t seem to be half grateful.’  George stood with his back to the kitchen fire, and did not say a word.  It was impossible for him even to appear to be pleasant when such things were being said.  Marie was a better hypocrite, and, though she said little, was able to look as though she could sympathise with her uncle’s pleasant mirth.  The two men had soon eaten their breakfast and were gone, and then Marie was left alone with her thoughts.  Would George say anything to his father of what had passed up-stairs on the previous evening?

The two men started, and when they were alone together, and as long as Michel abstained from talking about Marie and her prospects, George was able to converse freely with his father.  When they left the house the morning was just dawning, and the air was fresh and sharp.  ‘We shall soon have the frost here now,’ said Michel, ’and then there will be no more grass for the cattle.’

’I suppose they can have them out on the low lands till the end of November.  They always used.’

’Yes; they can have them out; but having them out and having food for them are different things.  The people here have so much stock now, that directly the growth is checked by the frost, the land becomes almost bare.  They forget the old saying—­“Half stocking, whole profits; whole stocking, half profits!” And then, too, I think the winters are earlier here than they used to be.  They’ll have to go back to the Swiss plan, I fancy, and carry the food to the cattle in their houses.  It may be old-fashioned, as they say; but I doubt whether the fodder does not go farther so.’  Then as they began to ascend the mountain, he got on to the subject of his own business and George’s prospects.  ’The dues to the Commune are so heavy,’ he said, ’that in fact there is little or nothing to be made out of the timber.  It looks like a business, because many men are employed, and it’s a kind of thing that spreads itself, and bears looking at.  But it leaves nothing behind.’

‘It’s not quite so bad as that, I hope,’ said George.

’Upon my word then it is not much better, my boy.  When you’ve charged yourself with interest on the money spent on the mills, there is not much to boast about.  You’re bound to replant every yard you strip, and yet the Commune expects as high a rent as when there was no planting to be done at all.  They couldn’t get it, only that men like myself have their money in the mills, and can’t well get out of the trade.’