It was a test even she could not submit to.

She stamped her foot with rage and uttered again and again the word Dracu, which in Roumanian means nothing less than his highness the devil himself.
Old Onucz and the watchman thereupon laughed heartily, and the same instant the iron door of the building opened and the girl exclaimed joyfully: "Fatia Negra!" Onucz and the watchman immediately tore their caps from their heads.

It was, indeed, Fatia Negra.
How could he get hither invisibly through all the ambushes set for him?
Who could tell?
Who had the courage to ask him?
Not even Anicza.

All she thought of at that moment was to rush forward, fall upon the neck of her mysterious lover and cover his eyes and mouth, which the mask left exposed, with kisses.
"Let Anicza come in!" said the black-masked man, "I'll answer for her, and she shall, like myself, be exempted from undressing." "It is well, Domnule,"[19] said the watchman, "but let her at least take the oath which everyone here must swear." [Footnote 19: Master.] "I am ready," cried the girl boldly.
"No, Anicza," replied Black Mask, "you shall swear to me a stronger oath even than that, you shall swear--by our eternal love." The proud maiden, trembling with joy, fell at the feet of Fatia Negra at these words, and pressing one of her hands to her heart, raised the other aloft, and, raising her lovely eyes--which reflected the infernal glare of the windows--aloft, towards the smoking canopy above her head, she swore by her eternal love to her beloved that she would never, not even on the rack itself, betray a word, a syllable of what she was about to learn.
But old Onucz scratched his poll.
"Domnule, it is not wise of you to let women swear on such useless things.

It is just as if one of us were to hold a penny in his hand and swear by that.