She smiled, and kissed his cheek, and still held his hand.  ‘Adrian,’ she said.

‘My love?’

’As I believe in the dear Jesus, I will do my best to be a good wife to you.’  Then he took her in his arms, and kissed her close, and went out of the room with tears streaming down his cheeks.  He knew now that he was in truth a happy man, and that God had been good to him in this matter of his future wife.

CHAPTER X.

’So your cousin Marie is to be married to Adrian Urmand, the young linen-merchant at Basle,’ said Madame Faragon one morning to George Voss.  In this manner were the first assured tidings of the coming marriage conveyed to the rival lover.  This occurred a day or two after the betrothal, when Adrian was back at Basle.  No one at Granpere had thought of writing an express letter to George on the subject.  George’s father might have done so, had the writing of letters been a customary thing with him; but his correspondence was not numerous, and such letters as he did write were short, and always confined to matters concerning his trade.  Madame Voss had, however, sent a special message to Madame Faragon, as soon as Adrian had gone, thinking that it would be well that in this way George should learn the truth.

It had been fully arranged by this time that George Voss was to be the landlord of the hotel at Colmar on and from the first day of the following year.  Madame Faragon was to be allowed to sit in the little room downstairs, to scold the servants, and to make the strangers from a distance believe that her authority was unimpaired.  She was also to receive a moderate annual pension in money in addition to her board and lodging.  For these considerations, and on condition that George Voss should expend a certain sum of money in renewing the faded glories of the house, he was to be the landlord in full enjoyment of all real power on the first of January following.  Madame Faragon, when she had expressed her agreement to the arrangement, which was indeed almost in all respects one of her own creation, wept and wheezed and groaned bitterly.  She declared that she would soon be dead, and so trouble him no more.  Nevertheless, she especially stipulated that she should have a new arm-chair for her own use, and that the feather bed in her own chamber should be renewed.

’So your cousin Marie is to be married to Adrian Urmand, the young linen-merchant at Basle,’ said Madame Faragon.

‘Who says so?’ demanded George.  He asked his question in a quiet voice; but, though the news had reached him thus suddenly, he had sufficient control over himself to prevent any plain expression of his feelings.  The thing which had been told him had gone into his heart like a knife; but he did not intend that Madame Faragon should know that he had been wounded.