’You are bound to keep it, especially as all your friends wish the marriage, and think that it will be good for you.  Annette Lolme’s friends wished her not to marry.  It is my duty to tell you, Marie, that if you break your faith to M. Urmand, you will commit a very grievous sin, and you will commit it with your eyes open.’

’If Annette Lolme might change her mind because her lover had not got as much money as people wanted, I am sure I may change mine because I don’t love a man.’

‘Annette did what her friends advised her.’

’Then a girl must always do what her friends tell her?  If I don’t marry M. Urmand, I sha’n’t be wicked for breaking my promise, but for disobeying Uncle Michel.’

‘You will be wicked in every way,’ said the priest.

’No, M. le Cure.  If I had married M. Urmand, I know I should be wicked to leave him, and I would do my best to live with him and make him a good wife.  But I have found out in time that I can’t love him; and therefore I am sure that I ought not to marry him, and I won’t.’

There was much more said between them, but M. le Cure Gondin was not able to prevail in the least.  He tried to cajole her, and he tried to persuade by threats, and he tried to conquer her by gratitude and affection towards her uncle.  But he could not prevail at all.

‘It is of no use my staying here any longer, M. le Cure,’ she said at last, ’because I am quite sure that nothing on earth will induce me to consent.  I am very sorry for what I have done.  If you tell me that I have sinned, I will repent and confess it.  I have repented, and am very, very sorry.  I know now that I was very wrong ever to think it possible that I could be his wife.  But you can’t make me think that I am wrong in this.’

Then she left him, and as soon as she was gone, Madame Voss returned to hear the priest’s report as to his success.

In the mean time, Michel Voss had reached Basle, arriving there some five hours before Marie’s letter, and, in his ignorance of the law, had made his futile attempt to intercept the letter before it reached the hands of M. Urmand.  But he was with Urmand when the letter was delivered, and endeavoured to persuade his young friend not to open it.  But in doing this he was obliged to explain, to a certain extent, what was the nature of the letter.  He was obliged to say so much about it as to justify the unhappy lover in asserting that it would be better for them all that he should know the contents.  ‘At any rate, you will promise not to believe it,’ said Michel.  And he did succeed in obtaining from M. Urmand a sort of promise that he would not regard the words of the letter as in truth expressing Marie’s real resolution.  ’Girls, you know, are such queer cattle,’ said Michel.  ’They think about all manner of things, and then they don’t know what they are thinking.’

‘But who is the other man?’ demanded Adrian, as soon as he had finished the letter.  Any one judging from his countenance when he asked the question would have imagined that in spite of his promise he believed every word that had been written to him.  His face was a picture of blank despair, and his voice was low and hoarse.  ’You must know whom she means,’ he added, when Michel did not at once reply.