Well, then, I will confess I am excited by my song. I did not mean to
approach the door again, yet here I am, in spite of myself; for I hear
still the words you said just now, 'If you bade me strike, I would
strike.' You love me, then?"

"Will you have gold,--all my gold?"

"No, I have enough."

"Have you an enemy? I will kill him."

"I have no enemy."

"Will you be my wife? I'll marry you."

"I am married."

"What would you, then? Oh, what would you?"

"Prove to me that your passion for me is blind,--furious! And that you
would sacrifice all to it."

"Ah!--yes--all. But how?"

"I do not know,--but a moment since your eyes fascinated me. If again
you give me one of those marks of intense love, which excite the
imagination of a woman to madness, I know not of what I should not be
capable. Make haste, then, for I am capricious, and to-morrow, perhaps,
all the impression will be effaced."

"But what proof can I give you at this moment?" cried the notary.

"You are but a fool, after all!" replied Cecily, retreating from the
aperture with an air of disdain. "I was deceived,--I believed you
capable of energetic devotion. Goodnight! It's a pity!"

"Cecily, do not leave me! Return! What can I do?"

"I was but too much disposed to listen to you; you will never have such
another opportunity."

"But oh, tell me what you would have!" cried the notary, half mad.

"Eh! If you were as passionately in love as you say, you would find
means to persuade me. Good night!"

"Cecily."

"I will shut the door, instead of opening it."

"Cecily,--listen! I will give you yet another proof of my devotion."

"What is this proof of your love?" said the creole, who, having
approached the mantelpiece to resume her dagger, returned slowly towards
the door, lighted by the flame of the hearth. Then, unobserved by the
notary, she made sure of the action of an iron chain, which terminated
in two small knobs, one of which was screwed into the door, and the
other into the door-post.

"Listen!" said Jacques Ferrand, in a hoarse and broken voice, "listen!
If I place my honour, my fortune, my life, at your mercy,--now, this
very instant,--will you then believe I love you?"

"Your honour, your fortune, your life! I do not comprehend you."

"If I confide to you a secret which may bring me to the scaffold, will
you then believe me?"

"You a criminal? You do but jest. What, then, of your austere
life,--your piety,--your honesty?"

"