rage, Jacques Ferrand replied, with
the most extreme dejection, "Do you know the person you are speaking of?
Tell me, have you ever seen her?"

"Never; but I am aware she is reported to be very beautiful."

"Beautiful!" exclaimed the notary, emphatically; then, with an
expression of bitter despair, he added, "Cease to speak of that you know
not. What I did you would have done if similarly tempted."

"What, endanger my life for the love of a woman?"

"For such a one as Cecily; and I tell you candidly I would do the same
thing again, for the same hopes as then led me on."

"By all the devils in hell," cried Polidori, in utter amazement, "he is
bewitched!"

"Hearken to me," resumed the notary, in a low, calm tone, occasionally
rendered more energetic by the bursts of uncontrollable despair which
possessed his mind. "Listen! You know how much I love gold, as well as
all I have ventured to acquire it. To count over in my thoughts the
sums I possessed, to see them doubled by my avarice, to know myself
master of immense wealth, was at once my joy, my happiness; to possess,
not for the sake of expending or enjoying, but to hoard, to gloat over,
was my life, my delight. A month ago, had I been told to choose between
my fortune and my head, I should certainly have sacrificed the latter to
save the former."

"But what would be the use of possessing all this wealth, if you must
die?"

"The ecstasy of dying in the consciousness of its possession; to enjoy
till the last moment the dear delightful feeling of being the owner of
those riches for which you have braved everything, privations, disgrace,
infamy, the scaffold itself, to be able to say, even as you lay your
head on the fatal block,'Those vast treasures are mine!' Oh, death is
far sweeter than to endure the living agonies I suffer at seeing the
riches accumulated with so much pain, difficulties, and dangers torn
from me! Dreadful, dreadful! 'Tis not dying daily, but each minute in
the day; and this dreadful state of misery may be protracted for years!
Oh, how greatly should I prefer being struck down by that sudden and
rapid death that carries you off ere one fragment of your beloved riches
is taken from you! For still, with your dying breath, you might sigh
forth, 'Those treasures are mine,--all, all mine! None but me can or
dare approach them!'"

Polidori gazed on his accomplice with profound astonishment. "I do not
understand you," said he, at last; "if such be t