have pleasure just by watching her as she went on some little household
errand, such as brought himself. She would know nothing of his
presence, and so she would be free, unrestrained by any shyness or--or
fear; if it was fear. So he had stood in his dark corner, and had seen
little, indeed, but heard all; and it was a wild and a miserable man
that crept down the narrow stairway and out into the fresh air.

He did not know where he was going. He wandered on and on, hearing
always that sound in his ears, the soft, sweet tones of the accursed
instrument that was wiling his wife, his own, his beloved, to her
destruction. 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