repent it. How can I repent it when I really mean it? I shall
never become his wife;--indeed I shall not. O, Uncle Michel, pray,
pray, pray do not go to Basle!'

But Michel Voss resolved that he would go to Basle, and to Basle he
went. The immediate weight, too, of Marie's misery was aggravated
by the fact that in order to catch the train for Basle at Colmar,
her uncle need not start quite immediately. There was an hour
during which he could continue to exercise his eloquence upon his
niece, and endeavour to induce her to authorise him to contradict
her own letter. He appealed first to her affection, and then to her
duty; and after that, having failed in these appeals, he poured
forth the full vials of his wrath upon her head. She was
ungrateful, obstinate, false, unwomanly, disobedient, irreligious,
sacrilegious, and an idiot. In the fury of his anger, there was
hardly any epithet of severe rebuke which he spared, and yet, as
every cruel word left his mouth, he assured her that it should all
be taken to mean nothing, if she would only now tell him that he
might nullify the letter. Though she had deserved all these bad
things which he had spoken of her, yet she should be regarded as
having deserved none of them, should again be accepted as having in
all points done her duty, if she would only, even now, be obedient.
But she was not to be shaken. She had at last formed a resolution,
and her uncle's words had no effect towards turning her from it.
'Uncle Michel,' she said at last, speaking with much seriousness of
purpose, and a dignity of person that was by no means thrown away
upon him, 'if I am what you say, I had better go away from your
house. I know I have been bad. I was bad to say that I would marry
M. Urmand. I will not defend myself. But nothing on earth shall
make me marry him. You had better let me go away, and get a place