This was not what Madame Voss had meant by speaking softly.
'Don't put it into her head that there is to be a doubt,' said Madame Voss.
Michel Voss had gone to his niece immediately upon his return from his walk, intending to obtain a renewed pledge from her that she would be true to her engagement.
He could not keep himself from interchanging a piteous glance or two with Marie at supper, and put a great deal too much unction into his caress to please Madame Voss, when Marie came to kiss him before she went to bed.
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.
You had better let me go away, and get a place 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.