he man that awaits you at the gate,
and the door that opens upon you, _shuts_ never to open again!'

"'Colonel!' I exclaimed, starting forward; but he heard me no more than
he would a fly buzzing or a bird singing.

"'I desire it to shut; I have no wish to come back!' issued from the set
white lips of the girl beneath us. 'There is no such charm for me in
this humdrum house, that I should wish to exchange life with the man I
adore, for its droning, spiritless existence!' And she lifted her foot
to proceed.

"'Jacqueline!' I shrieked, leaning forward in my turn, and holding her
by my anguish, as I never believed she could be held by anything,
'Think, child, think what you do! It is not life you are going to but
death. A man who can take a young girl from her father's house, from her
lover's arms, from her mother's grave, from the shrine of all that is
pure and holy, to dash her into a pit of all that is corrupt, loathsome
and deadly, is not one with whom you can _live_. You say you adore him:
can one adore falsehood, selfishness and depravity? Does hypocrisy win
love? Can the embraces of a serpent bring peace? Jacqueline, Jacqueline,
you are yet pure; come back to our love and our hearts, before we die
here in our shame at the head of the stairs, where your mother was
carried out to her grave!'

"She trembled. I saw the hand that clutched the banister loosen its
grip; she cast one quick look behind her, and her eyes flashed upon her
father's face; it was set like a flint.

"'If you come back,' cried he, leaning towards her, but not advancing a
step from where he stood, 'you must come back of your own free will. I
will hold no creature prisoner in my house. I must trust you implicitly,
or not at all. Speak then, which shall it be?' And he raised his hand
above his head, with a supreme and awful gesture, 'a father's blessing
or a father's curse?'

"'A father's curse, then! since you command me to choose,' rang out from
her lips in a burst of uncontrollable passion. 'I want no blessing that
separates me from _him_!' And she pointed towards the door with a look
that, defiant as it was, spoke of a terrible love before which all our
warnings and entreaties were but as empty air.

"'Curses then upon your head, slayer of a family's honor, a father's
love, and a mother's memory! Curses upon you, at home and abroad! in the
joy of your first passion and in the agony of your last despair! May you
live to look upon that door