sparkling fire!"

"Cecily, return!" cried Jacques Ferrand, in a supplicating tone.

"No, no, presently, when I can without danger; but the light from this lamp
hurts my eyes, a soft languor weighs down my eyelids. I do not know what
emotion agitates me; a demi-obscurity will please me more; one would say I
am in the twilight of pleasure."

And Cecily went toward the chimney, put out the lamp, took a guitar
suspended on the wall, and stirred the fire, whose blaze illuminated this
large room.

From the narrow wicket where he remained immovable, such was the picture
which Jacques Ferrand perceived. In the midst of the luminous horizon
formed by the undulating light of the fire, Cecily, in a position full of
languor, half reclining on a divan of pink satin, held a guitar, from
whence she drew some harmonious preludes.

The blazing hearth shed its rosy light on the Creole, who appeared
brilliantly illumined in the midst of the obscurity of the rest of the
apartment.

To complete the effect of this picture, let the reader recall to his mind
the mysterious and almost fantastic appearance of a room where the
firelight struggles with the long, dark shadows which tremble on the
ceiling and walls.

The storm redoubled its violence, its roaring could be heard from within.