“‘Jacqueline!’ I shrieked, leaning forward in my turn, and holding her by my anguish, as I never believed she could be held by anything, ‘Think, child, think what you do! It is not life you are going to but death. A man who can take a young girl from her father’s house, from her lover’s arms, from her mother’s grave, from the shrine of all that is pure and holy, to dash her into a pit of all that is corrupt, loathsome and deadly, is not one with whom you can _live_. You say you adore him: can one adore falsehood, selfishness and depravity? Does hypocrisy win love? Can the embraces of a serpent bring peace? Jacqueline, Jacqueline, you are yet pure; come back to our love and our hearts, before we die here in our shame at the head of the stairs, where your mother was carried out to her grave!’ “She trembled. I saw the hand that clutched the banister loosen its grip; she cast one quick look behind her, and her eyes flashed upon her father’s face; it was set like a flint. “‘If you come back,’ cried he, leaning towards her, but not advancing a step from where he stood, ‘you must come back of your own free will. I will hold no creature prisoner in my house. I must trust you implicitly, or not at all. Speak then, which shall it be?’ And he raised his hand above his head, with a supreme and awful gesture, ‘a father’s blessing or a father’s curse?’ “‘A father’s curse, then! since you command me to choose,’ rang out from her lips in a burst of uncontrollable passion. ‘I want no blessing that separates me from _him_!’ And she pointed towards the door with a look that, defiant as it was, spoke of a terrible love before which all our warnings and entreaties were but as empty air. “‘Curses then upon your head, slayer of a family’s honor, a father’s love, and a mother’s memory! Curses upon you, at home and abroad! in the joy of your first passion and in the agony of your last despair! May you live to look upon that door as the gateway to heaven, and find it shut! May your children, if you are cursed with them, turn in your face, as you are turning now in mine! May the lightning of heaven be your candle, and the blackness of death your daily food and your nightly drink!’ And with a look in which all the terrors he invoked, seemed to crash downward from his reeling brain upon her shrinking terror-crouched head, he gave one mighty gasp and fell back stricken to the floor. “‘God!’ burst from her lips, and she rushed downwards to the door like a creature hunted to its quarry. I saw her white face gleam marble-like in the fading light that came in from the chinks about the door. I saw her trembling hand fumbling with the knob, and rousing from my stupor, called down to her with all the force of a breaking heart, “‘Jacqueline, beware!’