The child, too, how would it be for him?
But the child was a smaller matter.

Perhaps,--who knows?
a child can live down sin.
But Mary, whom he fancied saved, cured, the evil thing rooted out of her heart and remembrance! Mary; Mary! He kept saying her name over and over to himself, sometimes aloud, in a passion of reproach, sometimes softly, broodingly, with love and pathos unutterable.

What power there was in that wicked voice! He had never rightly heard it before, never, save that instant when she stood playing in the village street, and he saw her for a moment and loved her forever.

Oh, he had heard, to be sure, this or that strolling fiddler,--godless, tippling wretches, who rarely came to the village, and never set foot there twice, he thought with pride.

But this, this was different! What power! what sweetness, filling his heart with rapture even while his spirit cried out against it! What voices, entreating, commanding, uplifting! Nay, what was he saying?
and who did not know that Satan could put on an angel's look when it pleased him?
and if a look, why not a voice?
When had a fiddle played godly tunes, chant or psalm?
when did it do aught else but tempt the foolish to their folly, the wicked to their iniquity?
Mary! Mary! How lovely she was, in the faint gleams of light that fell about her, there in the dim old attic! He felt her beauty, almost, more than he saw it.