"Ah! if you love me as passionately 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.
Then, without being seen by the notary, she assured herself of the action of a small chain, one end of which was fastened to the door, the other to the door-post.
"Listen," said Jacques Ferrand, in a hoarse and broken voice; "listen. If I place my honor, my fortune, my life, at your mercy—here—on the spot—will you then believe I love you? This proof of an insane passion, will it suffice?"
"Your honor, your fortune, your life? I do not comprehend."
"If I confide to you a secret which would place me on the scaffold?"
"You a criminal? You jest. And your austerity?"