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.
Love! what sort of word was that for him to be using, even in his mind?
To-morrow she would be gone, this wandering fiddler, and all this would be forgotten in a day, for he had the new cattle to see to, and a hundred things of importance.
But was anything else of importance save just this one girl?
and if he should let her go on her way, out into the world again, to certain perdition, would not the guilt be partly his?
He, who saw and knew the perils and pitfalls, might he not snatch this child from the fire and save her soul alive ?--No! he would begone, as soon as morning came, and take this sinful body of his away from temptation.
How soon would Abby get through her morning work, so that he might with some fair pretext go to the house to see how the stranger had slept, and how she had fared?
It would be cowardly to drop the burden on Abby's shoulders, she only a woman like the rest of them, even if she had somewhat more sense.
So Jacques De Arthenay sat by his fire till it was cold and dead, a miserable and a wrathful man; and he too slept little that night.
But Marie slept long and peacefully in Sister Lizzie's bed, and looked so pretty in her sleep that Abby came three times to wake her, and three times went away again, unable to spoil so perfect a picture.

At last, however, the dark eyes opened of their own accord, and Marie began to chirp and twitter, like a bird at daybreak in its nest; only instead of daybreak, it was eight o'clock in the morning, a most shocking hour for anybody to be getting up.