"What further explanations can you require, Miss Leslie," he said; "the preparations of her approaching marriage? A little touch of headache, perhaps? Is not this sufficient to explain all?" "No, sir, it is not. Because I would rather hear the truth, bitter as that truth may be, than these courteous mockeries which put me to the rack. Mr. Percy's opposition to my return to America; my father's emotion on beholding me; the strange isolation in which I am kept; and, lastly, your sister's extraordinary conduct of yesterday--all these prove to me that some terrible fatality overshadows me; a fatality of which I am ignorant, but which I am determined to discover." "Nay, Miss Leslie, what is that you would seek to know? Why not be content to reign by your grace and beauty? For the fatality of which you speak can cast no cloud upon your loveliness; and even the jealousy of our wives and sisters cannot rob you of your sovereignty." "I do not understand you, sir." "And yet I endeavored to make myself understood. Ah, Miss Leslie! we are but strangers, newly met, within this hour; but we Creoles are the children of a southern clime, and our passions are gigantic as the palms which wave above your head--rapid in growth as the lilies on the breast of yonder lake. Love, with us, is a flame; suppressed, it is true, yet needing but one spark from the torch of beauty to cause a conflagration." "Sir!" cried Cora, indignantly. The young girl felt that the Creole's burning, passionate words veiled a meaning which was an insult to her. "Nay, hear me, hear me, Cora," continued Augustus Horton; "there is, perhaps, a secret; there is, it may be, a fatality which overshadows your young life. Be mine, and none shall ever taunt you with that fatal secret; be mine, and you shall be the proudest beauty in Louisiana, the queen of New Orleans, the idol of your lover's devoted heart; be mine, and the debt owed me by your father shall be cancelled; be mine, and I will tear into a hundred fragments the bill which I hold for fifty thousand dollars, and which it will half ruin Gerald Leslie to pay." Her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving with offended modesty, Cora Leslie rose from her chair. "Toby," she called, without even replying by so much as a look to the planter's appeal. "Cora Leslie, what would you do?" exclaimed the Creole, rising. "Toby!" repeated Cora. "Beware, young lady!" The mulatto appeared in answer to the summons of his young mistress. "Toby, you will conduct this gentleman to the gates of my father's grounds, and remember that if he ever again dares to present himself here, it will be your duty to refuse him admittance. You hear?" "Yes, mistress."