she was giving them their breakfast that morning her mind was fully
made up. She had had the night to lie awake upon it, to think it
over, and to realise all that George had told her. It had come to
her as quite a new thing that the man whom she worshipped,
worshipped her too. While she believed that nobody else loved her;-
-when she could tell herself that her fate was nothing to anybody;--
as long as it had seemed to her that the world for her must be cold,
and hard, and material;--so long could she reconcile to herself,
after some painful, dubious fashion, the idea of being the wife
either of Adrian Urmand, or of any other man. Some kind of
servitude was needful, and if her uncle was decided that she must be
banished from his house, the kind of servitude which was proposed to
her at Basle would do as well as another. But when she had learned
the truth,--a truth so unexpected,--then such servitude became
impossible to her. On that morning, when she came down to give the
men their breakfast, she had quite determined that let the
consequences be what they might she would never become the wife of
Adrian Urmand. Madame Voss had told her husband that when Marie saw
the things purchased for her wedding coming into the house, the very
feeling that the goods had been bought would bind her to her
engagement. Marie had thought of that also, and was aware that she
must lose no time in making her purpose known, so that articles
which would be unnecessary might not be purchased. On that very
morning, while the men had been up in the mountain, she had sat with
her aunt hemming sheets;--intended as an addition to the already
overflowing stock possessed by M. Urmand. It was with difficulty
that she had brought herself to do that,--telling herself, however,
that as the linen was there, it must be hemmed; when there had come
a question of marking the sheets, she had evaded the task,--not
without raising suspicion in the bosom of Madame Voss.