quite firm in opposition to her aunt,—­who was in truth a woman much less strong by nature than herself,—­she dreaded a farther dispute with her uncle.  She could not bear to think that he should be enabled to accuse her with justice of ingratitude.  It had been her great pleasure to be true to him, and he had answered her truth by a perfect confidence which had given a charm to her life.  Now this would all be over, and she would be driven again to beg him to send her away, that she might become a household drudge elsewhere.  And now that this very moment of her agony had come, and that this man to whom she had given a promise was there to claim her, how was she to go down and say what she had to say, before all the world?  It was perfectly clear to her that in accordance with her reception of Urmand at the first moment of their meeting, so must be her continued conduct towards him, till he should leave her, or else take her away with him.  She could not smile on him and shake hands with him, and cut his bread for him and pour out his wine, after such a letter as she had written to him, without signifying thereby that the letter was to go for nothing.  Now, let what might happen, the letter was not to go for nothing.  The letter was to remain a true fact, and a true letter.  ’I can’t go down, Aunt Josey; indeed I can’t,’ she said.  ’I am not well, and I should drop.  Pray tell Uncle Michel, with my best love and with my duty, that I can’t go to him now.’  And she sat still upon her bed, not weeping, but clasping her hands, and trying to see her way out of her misfortune.

The dinner was eaten in grim silence, and after the dinner Michel, still grimly silent, sat with his friend on the bench before the door and smoked a cigar.  While he was smoking, Michel said never a word.  But he was thinking of the difficulty he had to overcome; and he was thinking also, at odd moments, whether his own son George was not, after all, a better sort of lover for a young woman than this young man who was seated by his side.  But it never occurred to him that he might find a solution of the difficulty by encouraging this second idea.  Urmand, during this time, was telling himself that it behoved him to be a man, and that his sitting there in silence was hardly proof of his manliness.  He knew that he was being ill-treated, and that he must do something to redress his own wrongs, if he only knew how to do it.  He was quite determined that he would not be a coward; that he would stand up for his own rights.  But if a young woman won’t marry a man, a man can’t make her do so, either by scolding her, or by fighting any of her friends.  In this case the young lady’s friends were all on his side.  But the weight of that half hour of silence and of Michel’s gloom was intolerable to him.  At last he got up and declared he would go and see an old woman who would have linen to sell.  ’As I am here, I might as well do a stroke of work,’ he said, striving to be jocose.