The disposition, habits, and former life of Jacques Ferrand known and displayed, the exciting beauty of the creole admitted, as we have endeavoured to paint her, together with other facts we shall detail as we proceed, will account, we presume, for the sudden passion, the unbridled desire of the notary for this seductive and dangerous creature. Then we must add, that if women of Cecily's stamp inspire nothing but repugnance and disgust to men endued with tender and elevated sentiments, with delicate and pure tastes, they exercise a sudden action, a magic omnipotence, over men of brutal sensuality like Jacques Ferrand. Thus a just, an avenging fatality, brought the creole into contact with the notary, and a terrible expiation was beginning for him. A fierce passion had urged him on to persecute, with pitiless malice, an indigent and honest family, and to spread amongst them misery, madness, and death. This passion was now to be the formidable chastisement of this great culprit. Although Jacques Ferrand was never to have his desires realised, the creole took care not to deprive him of all hope; but the vague and distant prospects she held out were so coloured by caprices that they were an additional torture, and more completely enslaved him. If we are astonished that a man of such vigour and audacity had not recourse to stratagem or violence to triumph over the calculating resistance of Cecily, we forget that Cecily was not a second Louise. Besides, the day after her presentation to the notary, she had played quite another part from that by aid of which she had been introduced to her master, for he had not been the dupe of his servant two days. Forewarned of the fate of Louise by the Baron de Grauen, and knowing besides by what abominable means she had become the prey of the notary, the creole, on entering this solitary house, had taken excellent precautions for passing her first night there in perfect security. The evening of her arrival, being alone with Jacques Ferrand, he, in order not to alarm her, pretended scarcely to look at her, and rudely ordered her to bed. She told him, _naively_, that she was afraid of thieves in the night, but that she was resolute, and capable of defending herself; at the same time drawing from her large woollen pelisse a small but exceedingly keen stiletto, the sight of which set the notary thinking. Believing that Cecily was afraid of robbers only, he showed her to the late chamber of Louise; after having examined it, Cecily said, trembling, she would sleep in a chair, because the door had neither lock nor bolt. Jacques Ferrand, unwilling to compromise himself by rousing Cecily's suspicions, promised a bolt should be fixed. The creole did not go to bed.