No more was said about it; but early on the following morning, or in truth long before the morning had dawned, George had started upon his journey, following his father and M. Urmand in their route over the mountain.  This was the third time he had gone to Granpere in the course of the present autumn, and on each time he had gone without invitation and without warning.  And yet, previous to this, he had remained above a year at Colmar without taking any notice of his family.  He knew that his father would not make him welcome, and he almost doubted whether it would be proper for him to drive himself direct to the door of the hotel.  His father had told him, when they were last parting from each other, that he was nothing but a trouble.  ‘You are all trouble,’ his father had said to him.  And then his father had threatened to have him turned from the door by the servants, if he should come to the house again before Marie and Adrian were married.  He was not afraid of his father; but he felt that he had no right to treat the Lion d’Or as his own home unless he was prepared to obey his father.  And he knew nothing as to Marie and her purpose.  He had learned from her that, were she left to herself, she would give herself with all her heart to him.  But she would not be left to herself, and he only knew now that Adrian Urmand was being taken back to Granpere,—­of course with the intention that the marriage should be at once perfected.  Madame Faragon had, no doubt, been right in her advice as to dashing in among them at once.  Whatever was to be done must be done now.  But it was by no means clear to him how he was to carry on the war when he found himself among them all at Granpere.

It was now October, and the morning on the mountain was very dark and cold.  He had started from Colmar between three and four, so that he had passed through Munster, and was ascending the hill before six.  He stopped, too, and fed his horse at the Emperor’s house at the top, and fortified himself with a tumbler of wine and a hunch of bread.  He meant to go into Granpere and claim Marie as his own.  He would go to the priest, and to the pastor if necessary, and forbid all authorities to lend their countenance to the proposed marriage.  He would speak his mind plainly, and would accuse his father of extreme cruelty.  He would call upon Madame Voss to save her niece.  He would be very savage with Marie, hoping that he might thereby save her from herself,—­defying her to say either before man or God that she loved the man whom she was about to make her husband.  And as to Adrian Urmand himself—­; he still thought that, should the worst come to the worst, he would try some process of choking upon Adrian Urmand.  Any use of personal violence would be distasteful to him and contrary to his nature.  He was not a man who in the ordinary way of his life would probably lift his hand against another.  Such liftings of hands on the part of other men he regarded as a falling