Then Michel Voss had answered with confidence, 'I am sure there is nobody else.' Urmand had listened and said very little; but when at supper he saw that the uncle was ruffled in his temper and sat silent with a black brow, that Madame Voss was troubled in spirit, and that Marie dispensed her soup without vouchsafing a look to any one, he felt that it behoved him to do his best, and he did it.

He talked freely to Madame Voss, telling her the news from Basle,--how at length he thought the French trade was reviving, and how all the Swiss authorities were still opposed to the German occupation of Alsace; and how flax was likely to be dearer than ever he had seen it; and how the travelling English were fewer this year than usual, to the great detriment of the innkeepers.

Every now and then he would say a word to Marie herself, as she passed near him, speaking in a cheery tone and striving his best to dispel a black silence which on the present occasion would have been specially lugubrious.

Upon the whole he did his work well, and Michel Voss was aware of it; but Marie Bromar entertained no gentle thought respecting him.

He was not wanted there, and he ought not to have come.