as a servant among our friends at Epinal.' But Michel Voss, though
he was heaping abuse upon her with the hope that he might thus
achieve his purpose, had not the remotest idea of severing the
connection which bound him and her together. He wanted to do her
good, not evil. She was exquisitely dear to him. If she would only
let him have his way and provide for her welfare as he saw, in his
wisdom, would be best, he would at once take her in his arms again
and tell her that she was the apple of his eye. But she would not;
and he went at last off on his road to Colmar and Basle, gnashing
his teeth in anger.



CHAPTER XVI.

Nothing was said to Marie about her sins on that afternoon after her
uncle had started on his journey. Everything in the hotel was
blank, and sad, and gloomy; but there was, at any rate, the negative
comfort of silence, and Marie was allowed to go about the house and
do her work without rebuke. But she observed that the Cure--M. le
Cure Gondin--sat much with her aunt during the evening, and she did
not doubt but that she herself and her iniquities made the subject
of their discourse.

M. le Cure Gondin, as he was generally called at Granpere,--being
always so spoken of, with his full name and title, by the large
Protestant portion of the community,--was a man very much respected
by all the neighbourhood. He was respected by the Protestants
because he never interfered with them, never told them, either
behind their backs or before their faces, that they would be damned