at this moment to disturb the reason of the notary. He cried, bewildered:

"Mercy! Cecily! mercy I I shall go wild. Hush! I die. Oh! that I were mad!"

"Listen, then, to the second couplet," said the Creole, preluding anew.

And she continued her passionate recitative:

"If my lover were there, and with his hand touched my soft neck, I should
shudder and die.
If he were there, and his hair touched my cheek, my cheek so pale would
become red.
My cheek so pale would be as fire.
Life of my soul, if you were there, my parched lips could not speak.
Life of my life, if you were there--expiring--I would ask no mercy.
Those whom I love as I love you, I kill.
My angel, come. Oh! come! My heart beats: my blood burns I
Come, come, come!"

If the Creole had accented the first stanza with a voluptuous languor, she
poured into these last words all the transports of Eros of old. As if the
music had been powerless to express her wild delirium, she threw the guitar
aside, and half rising from the couch and extending her arms toward the
door, she repeated, in an expiring, languishing voice,

"Oh! come, come, come!"

To paint the electric look with which she accompanied these words would he
impossible.