It is probable that all those concerned in the matter who slept at the Lion d’Or that night, made up their minds that on the following day the powers of the establishment must come to some decision. It was not right that a young woman should have to live in the house with two favoured lovers; nor, as regarded the young men, was it right that they should be allowed to go on glaring at each other. Both Michel and Madame Voss feared that they would do more than glare, seeing that they were so like two dogs with one bone between them, who, in such an emergency, will generally fight. Urmand himself was quite alive to the necessity of putting an end to his present exceptionally disagreeable position. He was very angry; very angry naturally with Marie, who had, he thought, treated him villainously. Why had she made that little soft, languid promise to him when he was last at Granpere, if she had not then loved him? And of course he was angry with George Voss. What unsuccessful lover fails of being angry with his happy rival? And then George had behaved with outrageous impropriety. Urmand was beginning now to have a clear insight of the circumstances. George and Marie had been lovers, and then George, having been sent away, had forgotten his love for a year or more. But when the girl had been accommodated with another lover, then he thrust himself forward and disturbed everybody’s arrangements! No conduct could have been worse than this. But, nevertheless, Urmand’s anger was the hottest against Michel Voss himself. Had he been left alone at Basle, had he been allowed to receive Marie’s letter, and act upon it in accordance with his own judgment, he would never have made himself ridiculous by appearing at Granpere as a discomfited lover. But the innkeeper had come and dragged him away from home, had misrepresented everything, had carried him away, as it were, by force to the scene of his disgrace, and now — threw him over! He, at any rate, he, Michel Voss, should, as Adrian Urmand felt very bitterly, have been true and constant; but Michel, whose face could not lie, whatever his words might do, was clearly as anxious to be rid of his young friend as were any of the others in the hotel. Urmand himself would have been very glad to be back at Basle. He had come to regard any farther connection with the inn at Granpere as extremely undesirable. The Voss family was low. He had found that out during his present visit. But how was he to get away, and not look, as he was going, like a dog with his tail between his legs? He had so clear a right to demand Marie’s hand, that he could not bring himself to bear to be robbed of his claim. And yet he had come to perceive how very foolish such a marriage would be. He had been told that he could do better. Of course he could do better. But how could he be rid of his bargain without submitting to ill-treatment? If Michel had not come and fetched him away from his home the ill-treatment would have been by comparison slight, and of that normal kind to which young men are accustomed. But to be brought over to the house, and then to be deserted by everybody in the house! How, O how, was he to get out of the house? Such were his reflections as he sat solitary in the long public room drinking his coffee, and eating an omelet, with which Peter Veque had supplied him, but which had in truth been cooked for him very carefully by Marie Bromar herself. In her present frame of mind Marie would have cooked ortolans for him had he wished for them.

And while Urmand was eating his omelet and thinking of his wrongs, Michel Voss and his son were standing together at the stable door. Michel had been there some time before his son had joined him, and when George came up to him he put out his hand almost furtively. George grasped it instantly, and then there came a tear into the innkeeper’s eye. ‘I have brought you a little of that tobacco we were talking of,’ said George, taking a small packet out of his pocket.

‘Thank ye, George; thank ye; but it does not much matter now what I smoke. Things are going wrong, and I don’t get satisfaction out of anything.’

‘Don’t say that, father.’

‘How can I help saying it? Look at that fellow up there. What am I to do with him? What am I to say to him? He means to stay there till he gets his wife.’

‘He’ll never get a wife here, if he stays till the house falls on him.’

‘I can see that now. But what am I to say to him? How am I to get rid of him? There is no denying, you know, that he has been treated badly among us.’

‘Would he take a little money, father?’

‘No. He’s not so bad as that.’

‘I should not have thought so; only he talked to me about his lawyer.’

‘Ah;— he did that in his anger. By George, if I was in his position I should try and raise the very devil. But don’t talk of giving him money, George. He’s not bad in that way.’

‘He shouldn’t have said anything about his lawyer.’

‘You wait till you’re placed as he is, and you’ll find that you’ll say anything that comes uppermost. But what are we to do with him, George?’

Then the matter was discussed in the utmost confidence, and in all its bearings. George offered to have a carriage and pair of horses got ready for Remiremont, and then to tell the young man that he was expected to get into it, and go away; but Michel felt that there must be some more ceremonious treatment than that. George then suggested that the Cure should give the message, but Michel again objected. The message, he felt, must be given by himself. The doing this would be very bitter to him, because it would be necessary that he should humble himself before the scented shiny head of the little man: but Michel knew that it must be so. Urmand had been undoubtedly ill-treated among them, and the apology for that ill-treatment must be made by the chief of the family himself. ‘I suppose I might as well go to him alone,’ said Michel, groaning.

‘Well, yes; I should say so,’ replied his son. ‘Soonest begun, soonest over;— and I suppose I might as well order the horses.’

To this latter suggestion the father made no reply, but went slowly into the house. He turned for a moment into Marie’s little office, and stood there hesitating whether he would tell her his mission. As she was to be made happy, why should she not know it?

‘You two have got the better of me among you,’ he said.

‘Which two, Uncle Michel?’

‘Which two? Why, you and George. And what I’m to do with the gentleman upstairs, it passes me to think. Thank heaven, it will be a great many years before Flos wants a husband.’ Flos was the little daughter up-stairs, who was as yet no more than five years old.

‘I hope, Uncle Michel, you’ll never have anybody else as naughty and troublesome as I have been,’ said Marie, pressing close to him. She was indescribably happy. She was to be saved from the lover whom she did not want. She was to have the lover whom she did want. And, over and above all this, a spirit of kind feeling and full sympathy existed once more between her and her dear friend. As she offered no advice in regard to the disposal of the gentleman up-stairs, Michel was obliged to go upon his painful duty, trusting to his own wit.

In the long room up-stairs he found Adrian Urmand sitting at the closed window, looking out at the ducks who were paddling in a temporary pool made by the late rains. He had been painfully in want of something to do,— so much so that he had more than once almost resolved to put his things into his bag, and leave the house without saying a word of farewell to any one. Had there been any means for him to escape from Granpere without saying a word, he would have done so. But at Granpere there was no railway, and the only public conveyance in and out of the place started from the door of the Lion d’Or; started every morning, with much ceremony, so that it was impossible for him to fly unobserved. There he was, watching the ducks, when Michel entered the room, and very much disposed to quarrel with any one who approached him.

‘I’m afraid you find it rather dull here,’ said Michel, beginning the conversation.

‘It is dull; very dull indeed.’

‘That is the worst of it. We are dull people here in the country. We have not the distractions which you town folk can always find. There’s not much to do, and nothing to look at.’

‘Very little to look at, that’s worth the trouble of looking,’ said Urmand.

There was a malignity of satire intended in this; for the young man in his wrath, and with a full conviction of what was coming upon him, had intended to include his betrothed in the catalogue of things of Granpere not worthy of inspection. But Michel Voss did not at all follow him so far as that.

‘I never saw such a place,’ continued Urmand. ‘There isn’t a soul even to play a game of billiards with.’

Now Michel Voss, although for a purpose he had been willing to make little of his own village, did in truth consider that Granpere was at any rate as good a place to live in as Basle. And he felt that though he might abuse Granpere, it was very uncourteous in Adrian Urmand to do so. ‘I don’t think much of playing billiards in the morning, I must own,’ said he.

‘I daresay not,’ said Urmand, s............