There came a day in spring when the desire mastered the fear that was in her. It was a perfect afternoon, the air a-lilt with bird-songs, and full of the perfume of early flowers. Her husband was ploughing in a distant field, and surely would not return for an hour or two; what might one not do in an hour? She called her little friend, Petie, who was hovering about the door, watching for her. Quickly, with fluttering breath, she told him what she meant to do, bade him be brave and fear nothing; locked the door, drew down the blinds, and closed the heavy wooden shutters; turned to the four corners of the room, bowing to each corner, as she muttered some words under her breath; and then, catching the child's hand in hers, began swiftly and lightly to mount the attic stairs.
CHAPTER X.
DE AKTHENAY'S VIGIL.
Was it a loup-garou in the attic? was it a loup-garou that drew that long, sighing breath, as of a soul in pain; was it a loup-garou that now groped its way to the other staircase, that which led up from the woodshed, pausing now and then, and going blindly, and breathing still heavily and slow?
De Arthenay had come up to the attic in search of something, tools, maybe, or seeds, or the like, for many odd things were stowed away under the over-hanging rafters. He heard steps, and stood still, knowing that it must be his wife who was coming up, and thinking to 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 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. And all this year, while he had thought her growing in grace, silently, indeed, but he hoped truly, she had been hankering for the forbidden thing, had been planning deceit in her heart, and had led away the innocent child to follow unrighteousness with her. He would go back, and do what he should have done a year ago,—what he would have done, had he not yielded to the foolish talk of a foolish woman. He would go back, and burn the fiddle, and silence forever that sweet, insidious music, with its wicked murmurs that stole into a man's heart—even a man's, and one who knew the evil, and abhorred it. The smoke of it once gone up to heaven, there would be an end. He should have his wife again, his own, and nothing should come between them more. Yes, he would go back, in a little while, as soon as those sounds had died away from his ears. What was the song she sung there?
"'Tis long and long I have loved thee!
I'll ne'er forget thee more."