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CHAPTER

MARIE.

MARIE.

So no one had thought of noticing when she dropped behind to tune her violin and practise by herself; it was a thing she did every day, they all knew, for she could not practise when the children pulled her gown all the time, and wanted to dance. She had chosen the place well, having been on the lookout for it all day, ever since Le Boss told her what he meant to do,--that infamy which the good God would never have allowed, if He had not been perhaps tired with the many infamies of Le Boss, and forgotten to notice this one. She had chosen the place well! A little wood dipped down to the right, with a brook running beyond, and across the brook a sudden sharp rise, crowned with a thick growth of birches. She had played steadily as she passed through the wood and over the stream, and only ceased when she gained the brow of the hill and sprang like a deer down the opposite slope. No one had seen her go, she was sure of that; and now they could never tell which way she had turned, and would be far more likely to run back along the road. How they would shout and scream, and how Le Boss would swear! Ah, no more would he swear at Marie because people did not always give money, being perhaps poor themselves, or unwilling to give to so ugly a face as his girl's, who carried round the dish. No more! And La Patronne would be sorry perhaps a little,--she had the good heart, La Patronne, under all the fat,--and Old Billy, he would be too sorry, she was sure. Poor Old Billy! it was cruel to leave him, when he had such joy of her playing, the good old man, and a hard life taking care of the beasts, and bearing all the blame if any of them died through hunger. But it would have been sadder for Old Billy to see her die, Marie, and she would have died, of course she would! To live without the Lady, a pretty life that would be! far sooner would one go at once to the good God, where the angels played all day, even if one were not allowed to play oneself just at first. Afterward, of course, when they found out how she had played down here, it would be otherwise.

Meanwhile, all these thoughts did not keep Marie from being tired, and hungry too; and she was glad enough to see some brown roofs clustered together at a little distance, as she turned a corner of the road. A village! good! Here would be children, without doubt; and where there were children, Marie was among friends. She stopped for a moment, to push back her hair, which had fallen down in the course of her night, and to tie the blue handkerchief neatly over it, and shake the dust from her bare feet. They were pretty feet, so brown and slender! She had shoes, but they were in the wagon; La Patronne took care of all the Sunday clothes, and there had been no chance to get at anything, even if she could have been hampered by such things as shoes, with the Lady to carry. It did not in the least matter about shoes, when it was summer: when the road was hot, one walked in the cool grass at the side; when there was no grass--eh, one waited till one came to some. They were only for state, these shoes. They were stiff and hard, and the heel-places hurt: it was different for La Patronne, who wore stockings under hers. But here were the houses, and it was time to play. They were pleasant-looking houses, Marie thought, they looked as if persons lived in them who stayed at home and spun, as the women did in Brittany. Ah, that it was far away, Brittany! she had almost forgotten it, and now it all seemed to come back to her, as she gazed about her at the houses, some white, some brown, all with an air of thrift and comfort, as becomes a New England village. That white house there, with the bright green blinds! That pleased her eye. And see! there was a child's toy lying on the step, a child's face peeping out of the window. Decidedly, she had arrived.

Marie took out her violin, and tuned it softly, with little rustling, whispering notes, speaking of perfect accord between owner and instrument; then she looked up at the child and smiled, and began to play "En revenant d'Auvergne." It was a tune that the little people always loved, and when one heard it, the feet began to dance before the head. Sure enough, the door opened in another moment, and the child came slipping out: not with flying steps, as a city child would come, to whom wandering musicians were a thing of every day; but shyly, with sidelong movements, clinging to the wall as it advanced, and only daring by stealth to lift its eyes to the strange woman with the fiddle, a sight never seen before in its little life. But Marie knew all about the things that children think. What was she but a child herself? she had little knowledge of grown persons, and regarded them all as ogres, more or less, except Old Billy, and La Patronne, who really meant to be kind.

"Come, lit' girl!" she said in her clear soft voice. "Come and dance! for you I play, for you I sing too, if you will. Ah, the pretty song, 'En revenant d'Auvergne!'" And she began to sing as she played:

"Eh, gai, Coco! Eh, gai, Coco! Eh, venez voir la danse Du petit marmot! Eh, venez voir la danse Du petit marmot!"

The little girl pressed closer against the wall, her eyes wide open, her finger in her mouth, yet came nearer and nearer, drawn by the smile as well as the music. Presently another came running up, and another; then the boys, who had just brought their cows home and were playing marbles on the sly, behind the brown barn, heard the sound of the fiddle and came running, stuffing their gains into their pockets as they ran. Then Mrs. Piper, who was always foolish about music, her neighbors said, came to her door, and Mrs. Post opposite, who was as deaf as her namesake, came to see what Susan Piper was after, loitering round the door when the men-folks were coming in to their supper: and so with one thing and another, Marie had quite a little crowd around her, and was feeling happy and pleased, and sure that when she stopped playing and carried round her handkerchief knotted at the four corners so as to form a bag, the pennies would drop into it as fast, yes, and maybe a good deal faster, than if Le Boss's ugly daughter was carrying it, with her nose turned up and one eye looking round the corner to see where her hair was gone to. Ah, Le Boss, what was he doing this evening for his music, with no Marie and no Lady!

And it was just at this triumphant moment that Jacques De Arthenay came round the corner and into the village street.

"D'ARTHENAY, TENEZ FOI!"

There had been De Arthenays in the village ever since it became a village: never many of them, one or two at most in a generation; not a prolific stock, but a hardy and persistent one. No one knew when the name had dropped its soft French sound, and taken the harsh Anglo-Saxon accent. It had been so with all the old French names, the L'Homme-Dieus and Des Isles and Beaulieus; the air, or the granite, or one knows not what, caused an ossification of the consonants, a drying up of the vowels, till these names, once soft and melodious, became more angular, more rasping in utterance, than ever Smith or Jones could be.

They were Huguenots, the d'Arthenays. A friend from childhood of St. Castin, Jacques d'Arthenay had followed his old companion to America at the time when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes rendered France no safe dwelling-place for those who had no hinges to their knees. A stern, silent man, this d'Arthenay, like most of his race: holding in scorn the things of earthly life, brooding over grievances, given to dwelling much on heaven and hell, as became his time and class. Leaving castle and lands and all earthly ties behind them, he and his wife came out of Sodom, as they expressed it, and turned not their faces, looking steadfastly forward to the wilderness where they were to worship God in His own temple, the virgin forest. It had been a terrible shock to find the Baron de St. Castin fallen away from religion and civilisation, living in savage pomp with his savage wives, the daughters of the great chief Modocawando. There could be no such companionship as this for the Sieur d'Arthenay and his noble wife; the friendship of half a lifetime was sternly repudiated, and d'Arthenay cast in his lot with the little band of Huguenot settlers who were striving to win their livelihood from the rugged soil of eastern Maine.

It was bitter bread that they ate, those French settlers. We read the story again and again, each time with a fresh pang of pity and regret; but it is not of them that this tale is told. Jacques d'Arthenay died in his wilderness, and his wife followed him quickly, leaving a son to carry on the name. The gravestone of these first d'Arthenays was still to be seen in the old burying-ground: they had been the first to be buried there. The old stone was sunk half-way in the earth, and was gray with moss and lichens; but the inscription was still legible, if one looked close, and had patience to decipher the crabbed text.

"Jacques St. George, Sieur d'Arthenay et de Vivonne. Mort en foi et en esperance, 28me Decembre, 1694."

Then a pair of mailed hands, clasped as in sign of friendship or loyalty, and beneath them again, the words,

"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"

The story was that the son of this first Sieur d'Arthenay had been exposed to some dire temptation, whether of love or of ambition was not clearly known, and had been in danger of turning from the faith of his people and embracing that of Rome. He came one day to meditate beside his father's grave, hoping perhaps to draw some strength, some inspiration, from the memories of that stern and righteous Huguenot; and as he sat beside the stone, lo! a mailed hand appeared, holding a sword, and graved with the point of the sword on the stone, the old motto of his father's house,--

"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"

And he had been strengthened, and lived and died in the faith of his father. Many people in the village scouted this story, and called it child's foolishness, but there were some who liked to believe it, and who pointed out that these words were not carved deeply and regularly, like the rest of the inscription, but roughly scratched, as if with a sharp point. And that although merely so scratched, they had never been effaced, but were even more easily read than the carven script.

Among those who held it for foolishness was the present Jacques De Arthenay. He was perhaps the fifth in descent from the old Huguenot, but he might have been his own son or brother. The Huguenot doctrines had only grown a little colder, a little harder, turned into New England Orthodoxy as it was understood fifty years ago. He thought little of his French descent or his noble blood. He pronounced his name Jakes, as all his neighbors did; he lived on his farm, as they lived on theirs. If it was a better farm, the land in better condition, the buildings and fences trimmer and better cared for, that was in the man, not in his circumstances. He was easily leader among the few men whose scattered dwellings made up the village of Sea Meadows His house did not lie on the little "street," as that part of the road was called where some half-dozen houses were clustered together, with their farms spreading out behind them, and the post-office for the king-pin; yet no important step would be taken by the villagers without the advice and approval of Jacques De Arthenay. Briefly, he was a born leader; a masterful man, with a habit of thinking before he spoke; and when he said a thing must be done, people were apt to do it. He was now thirty years old, without kith or kin that any one knew of; living by himself in a good house, and keeping it clean and decent, almost as a woman might; not likely ever to change his condition, it was supposed.

This was the man who happened to come into the street on some errand, that soft summer evening, at the very moment when Marie was feeling lifted up by the light of joy in the children's faces, and was telling herself how good it was that she had come this way. Hearing the sound of the fiddle, De Arthenay stopped for a moment, and his face grew dark as night. He was a religious man, as sternly so as his Huguenot ancestor, but wearing his religion with a difference. He knew all music, except psalm-tunes, to be directly from the devil. Even as to the psalm-tunes themselves, it seemed to him a dreadful thing that worship could not be conducted without this compromise with evil, this snare to catch the ear; and he harboured in the depth of his soul thoughts about the probable frivolity of David, which he hardly voiced even to himself. The fiddle, in particular, he held to be positively devilish, both in its origin and influence; those who played this unholy instrument were bound to no good place, and were sure to gain their port, in his opinion. Being thus minded, it was with a shock of horror that he heard the sound of a fiddle in the street of his own village, not fifty yards from the meeting-house itself. After a moment's pause, he came wrathfully down the street; his height raised him a head and shoulders above the people who were ringed around the little musician, and he looked over their heads, with his arm raised to command, and his lips opened to forbid the shameful thing. Then--he saw Marie's face; and straightway his arm dropped to his side, and he stood without speaking. The children looked up at him, and moved away, for they were always afraid of him, and at this moment his face was dreadful to see.

Yet it was nothing dreadful that he looked upon. Marie was standing with her head bent down over her violin, in a pretty way she had. A light, slight figure, not short, yet with a look that spoke all of youth and morning grace. She wore a little blue gown, patched and faded, and dusty enough after her day's walk; her feet were dusty too, but slender and delicately shaped. Her face was like nothing that had been seen in those parts before, and the beauty of it seemed to strike cold to the man's heart, as he stood and gazed with unwilling eyes, hating the feeling that constrained him, yet unable for the moment to restrain it or to turn his eyes away. She had that clear, bright whiteness of skin that is seen only in Frenchwomen, and only here and there among these; whiteness as of fire behind alabaster. Her hair was black and soft, and the lashes lay like jet on her cheek, as she stood looking down, smiling a little, feeling so happy, so pleased that she was pleasing others. And now, when she raised her eyes, they were seen to be dark and soft, too; but with what fire in their depths, what sunny light of joy,--the joy of a child among children! De Arthenay started, and his hands clenched themselves unconsciously. Marie started, too, as she met the stern gaze fixed upon her, and the joyous light faded from her eyes. Rudely it broke in upon her pleasant thoughts,--this vision of a set, bearded face, with cold blue eyes that yet had a flame in them, like a spark struck from steel. The little song died on her lips, and unconsciously she lowered her bow, and stood silent, returning helplessly the look bent so sternly upon her.

When Jacques de Arthenay found himself able to speak at last, he started at the sound of his own voice.

"Who are you?" he asked. "How did you come here, young woman?"

Marie held out her fiddle with a pretty, appealing gesture. "I come--from away!" she said, in her broken English, that sounded soft and strange to his ears. "I do no harm. I play, to make happy the children, to get bread for me."

"Who came with you?" De Arthenay continued. "Who are your folks?"

She looked wistfully at him, and something seemed to rise up in the man's throat and choke him. He made a violent motion, as if to free himself from something. What had happened to him,--was he suddenly possessed, or was he losing his wits? He tried to force his voice back into its usual tone, tried even to speak gently, though his heart was beating so wildly at the way she looked, at the sweet notes of her voice, like a flute in its lower notes, that he could hardly hear his own words. "No, no music!" he said. "There must be no music here, among Christian folks. Put away that thing, young woman. It is an evil thing, bringing sin, and death, which is the wages of sin, with it. How came you here, if you have no one belonging to you?"

Falteringly, her sweet eyes dropped on the ground, with only now and then a timid, appealing glance at this terrible person, this awful judge who had suddenly dropped from the skies, Marie told her little story, or as much of it as she thought needful. She had been with bad people, playing for them, a long time, she did not know how long. And then they would take away her violin, and she would not stay, and she ran away from them, and had walked all day, and--and that was all. A little sob shook her voice at the last words; she had not realised before how utterly alone she was. The delight of freedom, of getting away from her tyrants, had been enough at first, and she had been as it were on wings all day, like a bird let loose from its cage; now the little bird was weary, and the wings drooped, and there was no nest, not even a friendly cage where one would find food and drink,

A sudden passion of pity--he supposed it was pity--shook the strong man. He felt a wild impulse to catch the little shrinking creature in his arms and bear her away to his own home, to warm and cheer and comfort her. Was there ever before anything in the world so sweet, so helpless, so forlorn? He looked around. The children were all gone; he stood alone in the street with the foreign woman, and night was falling. It was at this moment that Abby Rock, who had been watching from her window for the past few minutes, opened her door and came out, stepping quietly toward them, as if they were just the people she had expected to see. De Arthenay hailed her as an angel from Heaven; and yet Abby did not look like an angel.

"Abby!" he cried. "Come here a minute, will you?"

"Good evening, Jacques!" said Abby, in her quiet voice. "Good evening to you!" she added, speaking kindly to the little stranger. "I was coming to see if you wouldn't like to step into my house and rest you a spell. Why, my heart!" she cried, as Marie raised her head at the sound of the friendly voice, "you're nothing but a child. Come right along with me, my dear. Alone, are ye, and night coming on!"

"That's right, Abby!" cried De Arthenay, with feverish eagerness. "Yes, yes, take her home with you and make her comfortable. She is a stranger, and has no friends, so she says. I--I'll see you in the morning about her. Take her! take her in where she will be comfortable, and I'll--"

"I'll pay you well for it," was what he was going to say, but Abby's quiet look stopped the words on his lips. Why should he pay her for taking care of a stranger, of whom he knew no more than she did; whom he had never seen till this moment?--why, indeed! and she was as well able to pay for the young woman's keep as he was to say the least. All this De Arthenay saw, or fancied he saw, in Abby Rock's glance. He turned away, muttering something about seeing them in the morning; then, with an abrupt bow, which yet was not without grace, he strode swiftly down the street and took his way home.

ABBY ROCK.

If Abby Rock's kitchen was not heaven, it seemed very near it to Marie that evening. She found herself suddenly in an atmosphere of peace and comfort of which her life had heretofore known nothing. The evening had fallen chill outside, but here all was warm and light and cheerful, and the warmth and cheer seemed to be embodied in the person of the woman who moved quickly to and fro, stirring the fire, putting the kettle on the hob , drawing a chair up near the cheerful blaze. Marie felt herself enfolded with comfort. A shawl was thrown over her shoulders; she was lifted like a child, and placed in the chair by the fireside; and now, as she sat in a dream, fearing every moment to wake and find herself back in the old life again, a cup of tea, hot and fragrant, was set before her, and the handkerchief tenderly loosened from her neck, while a kind voice bade her drink, for it would do her good.

"You look beat out, and that's the fact," said Abby Rock. "To-morrow you shall tell me all about it, but you no need to say a single word to-night, only just set still and rest ye. I'm a lone woman here. I buried my mother last June, and I'm right glad to have company once in a while. Abby Rock, my name is; and perhaps if you'd tell me yours, we should feel more comfortable like, when we come to sit down to supper. What do you say?"

Her glance was so kind, her voice so cordial and hearty, that Marie could have knelt down to thank her. "I am Marie," she said, smiling back into the kind eyes. "Only Marie, nossing else."

"Maree!" repeated Abby Rock. "Well, it's a pretty name, sure enough; has a sound of 'Mary' in it, too, and that was my mother's name. But what was your father's name, or your mother's, if so be your father ain't living now?"

Marie shook her head. "I never know!" she said. "All the days I lived with Mere Jeanne in the village, far away, oh, far, over the sea."

"Over the sea?" said Abby. "You mean the bay, don't you,--some of those French settlements down along the shore?"

But Marie meant the sea, it appeared; for her village was in France, in Eretagne, and there she had lived till the day when Mere Jeanne died, and she was left alone, with no-one belonging to her. Mere Jeanne was not her mother, no! nor yet her grandmother,--only her mother's aunt, but good, Abby must understand, good as an angel, good as Abby herself. And when she was dead, there was only her son, Jeannot, and he had married a devil,--but yes!--as Abby exclaimed, and held up her hands in reproof,--truly a devil of the worst kind; and one day, when Jeannot was away, this wife had sold her, Marie, to another devil, Le Boss, who made the tours in the country for to sing and to play. And he had brought her away to this country, over very dreadful seas, where one went down into the grave at every instant, and then up again to the clouds, but leaving one's stomach behind one--ah, but terrible! Others were with them, oh, yes!--This in response to Abby's question, for in spite of her good resolutions, curiosity was taking possession of her, and it was evidently a relief to Marie to pour out her little tale in a sympathetic ear,--many others. La Patronne, the wife of Le Boss, who was like a barrel, but not bad, when she could see through the fat, not bad in every way; and there was Old Billy, who took care of the horses and dogs, and he was her friend, and she loved him, and he had always the good word for her even when he was very drunk, too drunk to speak to any one else. And then there was the daughter of Le Boss, who would in all probability never die, for she was so ugly that she would not be admitted into the other world, where, Mere Jeanne said, even Monsieur the Great Devil himself was good-looking, save for his expression. Also there were the boys who tumbled and rode on the ponies, and--and--and ozer people. And with this Mane's head dropped forward, and she was asleep.

It seemed a pity to wake her when supper was ready, but Abby knew just how good her rolls were, and knew that the child must be famished; and sure enough, after a little nap, Marie was ready to wake and sit up at the little round table, and be fed like a baby with everything good that Abby could think of. The fare had not been dainty in the travelling troupe of Le Boss. The fine white bread, the golden butter, the bit of broiled fish, smoking hot, seemed viands of paradise to the hungry girl. She laughed for pleasure, and her eyes shone like stars. It was like the chateau, she said, where everything was gold and silver,--the chateau where Madame la Comtesse lived. As for Abby herself, Marie gravely informed her that she was an angel. Abby laughed, not ill pleased. "I don't look special like angels," she said; "that is, if the pictures I've seen are correct. Not much wings and curls and white robes about me, Maree. And who ever heard of an angel in a check apurn, I want to know?"

But Marie was not to be turned aside. It was well known, she said, that angels could not come to earth undisguised in these days. It had something to do with the Jews, she did not know exactly what. Mere Jeanne had told her, but she forgot just how it was. But as to their not coming at all, that would be out of the question, for how would the good God know what was going on down here, or know who was behaving well and meriting a crown of glory, and who should go down into the pit? Did not Abby see that?

Abby privately thought that here was strange heathen talk to be going on in her kitchen; but she said nothing, only gave her guest more jam, and said she was eating nothing,--the proper formula for a good hostess, no matter how much the guest may have devoured.

It was true, as has been said before, that Abby Rock was not fair to outward view. Nature had been in a crabbed mood when she fashioned this gaunt, angular form, these gnarled, unlovely features. An uncharitable neighbour, in describing Abby, once said that she looked as if she had swallowed an old cedar fence-rail and shrunk to it; and the description was apt enough so far as the body went. Her skin, eyes, and hair were of different shades of greyish brown; her nose was long and knotty, her mouth and chin apparently taken at random from a box of misfits. Yes, the cedar fence-rail came as near to it as anything could. Yet somehow, no one who had seen the light of kindness in those faded eyes, and heard the sweet, cordial tones of that quiet voice, thought much about their owner's looks. People said it was a pity Abby wasn't better favoured, and then they thought no more about it, but were simply thankful that she existed.

She had led the life that many an ugly saint leads, here in New England, and the world over. Nurse and drudge for the pretty younger sister, the pride and joy of her heart, till she married and went away to live in a distant State; then drudge and nurse for the invalid mother, broken down by unremitting toil. No toil would ever break Abby down, for she was a strong woman; she had never worked too hard that she was aware of; but--she had always worked, and never done anything else. No lover had ever looked into her eyes or taken her hand tenderly. Not likely! she would say to herself with a scornful sniff, eyeing her homely face in the glass. Men weren't such fools as they looked.

One or two had wanted to marry her house, as she expressed it, and had asked for herself into the bargain, not seeing how they could manage it otherwise. They were not to blame for wanting the house, she thought with some complacency, as she glanced round her sitting-room. Everything in the room shone and twinkled. The rugs were beautifully made, and the floor under them in the usual dining-table condition ascribed ever since books were written to the model housewife. The corner cupboards held treasures of blue and white that it makes one ache to think of to-day, and some pieces of India china besides, brought over seas by some sea-going Rock of a former generation: and there were silver spoons in the iron box under Abby's bed, and the dragon tea-pot on the high narrow mantel-piece was always full, but not with tea-leaves. Yes, and there was no better cow in the village than Abby's, save those two fancy heifers that Jacques de Arthenay had lately bought. Altogether, she did not wonder that some of the weaker brethren, who found their own farms "hard sledding," should think enough of her pleasant home to be willing to take her along with it, since they could do no better; but they did not get it. Abby found life very pleasant, now that grief was softened down into tender recollection. To be alone, and able to do things just when she wanted to do them, and in her own way; to consider what she herself liked to eat, and to wear, and to do; to feel that she could come and go, rise up and lie down, at her own will,--was strange but pleasant to her. How long the pleasure would have lasted is another question, for the woman's nature was to love and to serve; but just now there was no doubt that she was enjoying her freedom.

And now she had taken in this little stranger, just because she felt like it; it was a new luxury, a new amusement, that was all. Such a pretty little creature, so soft and young, and with that brightness in her face! Sister Lizzie was light-complected, and this child didn't favour her, not the least mite; yet it was some like the same feeling, as if it were a kitten or a pretty bird to take care of, and feed and pet. So thought Abby, as she tucked up Marie in Sister Lizzie's little white bed, in the pink ribbon chamber, as she had named it in sport, after she had let Lizzie furnish it to her taste, that last year before she was married. The child looked about her as if it were a palace, instead of a lean-to chamber with a sloping roof. She had never seen anything like this in her life, since those days when she went to the chateau. She touched the white walls softly, and passed her hand over the pink mats on the bureau with wondering awe. And then she curled up in the white bed when Abby bade her, as like a kitten as anything could be. "Oh, you are good, good!" cried the child, whom the warmth and comfort and kindness seemed to have lifted into another world from the cold, sordid one in which she had lived so long. She caught the kind hard knotted hand, and kissed it; but Abby snatched it away, and blushed to her eyebrows, feeling that something improper had occurred. "There! there!" she said, half confused, half reproving. "You don't want to do such things as that! I've done no more than was right, and you alone and friendless, and night coming on. Go to sleep now, like a good girl, and we'll see in the morning." So Marie went to sleep in Sister Lizzie's bed, with her fiddle lying across her feet, since she could not sleep a wink otherwise, she said; and when Abby went downstairs the room seemed cold, and she thought how she missed Lizzie, and wondered if it wouldn't be pleasant to keep this pretty creature for a spell, and do for her a little, and make her up some portion of clothing. There was a real good dress of Lizzie's, hanging this minute in the press upstairs: she had a good mind to take it out at once and see what could be done to it; perhaps--and Abby did not go to bed very early herself that night.

POSSESSION.

Jacques De Arthenay went home that night like a man possessed. He was furious with himself, with the strange woman who had thus set his sober thoughts in a whirl, with the very children in the street who had laughed and danced and encouraged her in her sinful music, to her own peril and theirs. He thought it was only anger that so held his mind; yet once in his house, seated on the little stool before his fire, he found himself still in the street, still looking down into that lovely childish face that lifted itself so innocently to his, still smitten to the heart by the beauty of it, and by the fear that he saw in it of his own stern aspect. He had never looked upon any woman before. He had been proud of it,--proud of his strength and cleverness, that needed no meddlesome female creature coming in between him and his business, between him and his religion. He had not let his hair and beard grow, knowing nothing of such practices, but in heart he had been a Nazarite from his youth up,--serving God in his harsh, unloving way; loving God, as he thought; certainly loving nothing else, if it were not the dumb creatures, to whom he was always kind and just. And now--what had happened to him? He asked himself the question sternly, sitting there before the cheerful blaze, yet neither seeing nor feeling it. The answer seemed to cry itself in his ears, to write itself before his eyes in letters of fire. The thing had happened that happens in the story books, that really comes to pass once in a hundred years, they say. He had seen the one woman in the world that he wanted for his own, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. She was a stranger, a vagabond, trading in iniquity, and gaining her bread by the corruption of souls of men and children; and he loved her, he longed for her, and the world meant nothing to him henceforth unless he could have her. He put the thought away from him like a snake, but it came back and curled round his heart, and made him cold and then hot and then cold again. Was he not a professing Christian, bound by the strictest ties? Yes! How she looked, standing there with the children about her, the little slender figure swaying to and fro to the music, the pretty head bent down so lovingly, the dark eyes looking here and there, bright and shy, like those of a wild creature so gentle in its nature that it knew no fear. But he had taught her fear! yes, he saw it grow under his eyes, just as the love grew in his own heart at the same moment.

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