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.




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