On the next morning M. Urmand returned home to Basle, taking the public conveyance as far as Remiremont. Everybody was up to see him off, and Marie herself gave him his cup of coffee at parting. It was pretty to see the mingled grace and shame with which the little ceremony was performed. She hardly said a word; indeed what word she did say was heard by no one; but she crossed her hands on her breast, and the gravest smile came over her face, and she turned her eyes down to the ground, and if any one ever begged pardon without a word spoken, Marie Bromar then asked Adrian Urmand to pardon her the evil she had wrought upon him. 'O, yes;--of course,' he said. 'It's all right. It's all right.' Then she gave him her hand, and said good-bye, and ran away up into her room. Though she had got rid of one lover, not a word had yet been said as to her uncle's acceptance of that other lover on her behalf; nor had any words more tender been spoken between her and George than those with which the reader has been made acquainted. 'And now,' said George, as soon as the diligence had started out of the yard. 'Well;--and what now?' asked the father. 'I must be off to Colmar next.' 'Not to-day, George.' 'Yes; to-day;--or this evening at least. But I must settle something first. What do you say, father?' Michel Voss stood for a while with his hands in his pockets and his head turned away. 'You know what I mean, father.' 'O yes; I know what you mean.' 'I don't suppose you'll say anything against it now.' 'It wouldn't be any good, I suppose, if I did,' said Michel, crossing over the courtyard to the other part of the establishment. He gave no farther permission than this, but George thought that so much was sufficient. George did return to Colmar that evening, being in all matters of business a man accurate and resolute; but he did not go till he had been thoroughly scolded for his misconduct by Marie Bromar. 'It was your fault,' said Marie. 'Your fault from beginning to end.' 'It shall be if you say so,' answered George; 'but I can't say that I see it.' 'If a person goes away for more than twelve months and never sends a word or a message or a sign, what is a person to think, George?' He could only promise her that he would never leave her again even for a month. How they were married in November, and how Madame Faragon was brought over to Granpere with infinite trouble, and how the household linen got itself marked at last, with a V instead of a U, the reader can understand without the narration of farther details.