tate of
enthusiastic delight impossible to describe, "I will brave them all! Oh,
you are right! Were I ever so young, so handsome, or so seducing, I
could not hope for joy such as now swells my heart. But delay not,
charmer of my soul,--give me the key, or yourself undo the bolts which
separate us. I can endure this torturing suspense no longer!"

The creole took from the lock, which she had carefully secured
beforehand, the key so ardently prayed for, and, handing it to the
notary through the aperture, said, in a languishing tone of utter
abandonnement:

"Jacques, my senses seem forsaking me,--my brain is on fire,--I know not
what I do or say."

"You are mine, then, at length, my adorable beauty!" cried he, with a
wild shout of savage exultation, and hastily turning the key in the
lock. But the firmly bolted door yielded not yet.

"Come, beloved of my heart!" murmured Cecily, in a languid voice; "bless
me with your presence,--come!"

"The bolt! The bolt!" gasped out Jacques Ferrand, breathless with his
exertions to force open the door.

"But what if you have been deceiving me?" cried the creole, as though a
sudden thought had seized her; "if you have only invented the secrets
with which you affect to entrust me, to mock at my credulity, to ensnare
my confidence?"

The notary appeared thunderstruck with surprise at this fresh expression
of doubt, at the very moment when he believed himself upon the point of
attaining his wishes; to find a new obstacle arise when he considered
success certain drove him almost furious. He rapidly thrust his hand
into his breast, opened his waistcoat, impatiently snapped a steel
chain, to which was suspended a small red morocco pocketbook, took it,
and showing it to Cecily, through the aperture, cried, in a thick,
palpitating voice:

"This book contains papers that would bring me to a scaffold; only undo
the bolts which deny me entrance to your presence, and this book, with
all its precious documents, is yours."

"Oh, then, let us seal the compact!" exclaimed Cecily, as, drawing back
the bolt with as much noise as possible with one hand, with the other
she seized the pocketbook.

But Jacques Ferrand permitted it not to leave his possession till he
felt the door yield to his pressure. But though it partially gave way,
it was but to leave an opening about half a foot wide, the solid chain
which passed across it above the lock preventing any person's entering
as completely as be