Volume III Part 8 (1/2)
”O! death--death to him you love so much, to whom you have addressed these words!” cried he, shaking the door in a transport of jealousy.
Active as a tigress, with one bound Cecily was at the wicket, and, as if she had with difficulty dispelled her feigned transports, she said to Jacques Ferrand, in a low, palpitating voice: ”Well! I avow I did not wish to return to the door. I am here in spite of myself; for I fear your words spoken just now. _If you say strike--I will strike._ You love me well, then?”
”Do you wish gold--all my gold?”
”No; I have enough.”
”Have you an enemy? I'll kill him.”
”I have no enemy.”
”Will you be my wife? I will espouse you.”
”I am married.”
”But what do you wish, then! what _do_ you wish?”
”Prove to me that your pa.s.sion for me is blind, furious, that you will sacrifice everything for me!”
”All! yes, all! But how?”
”I do not know; but there was a moment when the glance of your eye bewildered me. If now you give me some proof of your love, I do not know of what I should be capable! Hasten! I am capricious; to-morrow the impression of this hour will perhaps be effaced.”
”But what proof can I give you on the moment?” cried the wretch. ”It is an atrocious torment! What proof? speak! What proof?”
”You are only a fool!” answered Cecily, retreating from the wicket with an appearance of extreme irritation. ”I am mistaken! I thought you capable of energetic devotion! Good-night. It is a pity--”
”Cecily! oh! do not go--return. But what must I do? tell me, at least. Oh!
my senses wander. What must I do? what do?”
”Guess!”
”But, in fine--speak! what do you wish?” cried the notary, quite beside himself.
”Guess.”
”Explain--command.”
”Ah! if you love me as pa.s.sionately as you say, you will find the means.
Good-night.”
”Cecily!”
”I am going to shut this wicket--instead of opening the door--”
”Mercy! listen--remain--I have found it,” cried Jacques Ferrand, after a moment's pause, with an expression of joy impossible to describe. The wretch was seized with a vertigo. He lost all prudence, all reserve; the instinct of moral preservation abandoned him.
”Well! this proof of your love?” said the Creole: who, having approached the chimney, took hold of her knife, and returned slowly toward the wicket.