CHAPTER IV.
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.