They two remained in the long room together for a considerable time, during all of which Michel Voss was as gentle as though Urmand had been a child.  Nor did the poor rejected lover again have recourse to any violence of abuse, though he would over and over again repeat his opinion that surely, since lovers were first known in the world, and betrothals of marriage first made, no one had ever been so ill-used as was he.  It soon became clear to Michel that his great grief did not come from the loss of his wife, but from the feeling that everybody would know that he had been ill-used.  There wasn’t a shopkeeper in his own town, he said, who hadn’t heard of his approaching marriage.  And what was he to say when he went back?

‘Just say that you found us so rough and rustic,’ said Michel Voss.

But Urmand knew well that no such saying on his part would be believed.

‘I think I shall go to Lyons,’ said he, ’and stay there for six months.  What’s the business to me?  I don’t care for the business.’

There they sat all the morning.  Two or three times Peter Veque opened the door, peeped in at them, and then brought down word that the conference was still going on.

‘The master is sitting just over him like,’ said Peter, ’and they’re as close and loving as birds.’

Marie listened, and said not a word to any one.  George had made two or three little attempts during the morning to entice her into some lover-like privacy.  But Marie would not be enticed.  The man to whom she was betrothed was still in the house; and, though she was quite secure that the betrothals would now be absolutely annulled, still she would not actually entertain another lover till this was done.

At length the door of the long room was opened, and the two men came out.  Adrian Urmand, who was the first to be seen in the passage, went at once to his bedroom, and then Michel descended to the little parlour.  Marie was at the moment sitting on her stool of authority in the office, from whence she could hear what was said in the parlour.  Satisfied with this, she did not come down from her seat.  In the parlour was Madame Voss and the Cure, and George, who had seen his father from the front door, at once joined them.

‘Well,’ said Madame Voss, ‘how is it to be?’

’I’ve arranged that we’re to have a little picnic up the ravine to-morrow,’ said Michel.

‘A picnic!’ said the Cure.

‘I’m all for a picnic,’ said George.

‘A picnic!’ said Madame Voss, ’and the ground as wet as a sop, and the wind from the mountains enough to cut one in two.’

’Never mind about the wind.  We’ll take coats and umbrellas.  It’s better to have some kind of an outing, and then he’ll recover himself.’  Marie, as she heard all this, made up her mind that if any possible store of provisions packed in hampers could bring her late lover round to equanimity, no efforts on her part should be wanting.  She would pack up cold chickens and champagne bottles with the greatest pleasure, and would eat her dinner sitting on a rock, even though the wind from the mountains should cut her in two.