Early on the following morning Michel Voss went off by himself.  He could not stay in bed, and he could not hang about the house.  He did not know how to demean himself to either of the young men when he met them.  He could not be cordial as he ought to be with Urmand; nor could he be austere to George with that austerity which he felt would have been proper on his part.  He was becoming very tired of his dignity and authority.  Hitherto the exercise of power in his household had generally been easy enough, his wife and Marie had always been loving and pleasant in their obedience.  Till within these last weeks there had even been the most perfect accordance between him and his niece.  ’Send him away;—­that’s very easily said,’ he muttered to himself as he went up towards the mountains; ‘but he has got my engagement, and of course he’ll hold me to it.’  He trudged on, he hardly knew whither.  He was so unhappy, that the mills and the timber-cutting were nothing to him.  When he had walked himself into a heat, he sat down and took out his pipe, but he smoked more by habit than for enjoyment.  Supposing that he did bring himself to change his mind,—­which he did not think he ever would,—­how could he break the matter to Urmand?  He told himself that he was sure he would not change his mind, because of his solemn engagement to the young man; but he did acknowledge that the young man was not what he had taken him to be.  He was effeminate, and wanted spirit, and smelt of hair-grease.  Michel had discovered none of these defects,—­had perhaps regarded the characteristics as meritorious rather than otherwise,—­while he had been hotly in favour of the marriage.  Then the hair-grease and the rest of it had in his eyes simply been signs of the civilisation of the town as contrasted with the rusticity of the country.  It was then a great thing in his eyes that Marie should marry a man so polished, though much of the polish may have come from pomade.  Now his ideas were altered, and, as he sat alone upon the log, he continued to turn up his nose at poor M. Urmand.  But how was he to be rid of him,—­and, if not of him, what was he to do then?  Was he to let all authority go by the board, and allow the two young people to marry, although the whole village heard how he had pledged himself in this matter?

As he was sitting there, suddenly his son came upon him.  He frowned and went on smoking, though at heart he felt grateful to George for having found him out and followed him.  He was altogether tired of being alone, or, worse than that, of being left together with Adrian Urmand.  But the overtures for a general reconciliation could not come first from him, nor could any be entertained without at least some show of obedience.  ‘I thought I should find you up here,’ said George.

‘And now you have found me, what of that?’

’I fancy we can talk better, father, up among the woods, than we can down there when that young man is hanging about.  We always used to have a chat up here, you know.’