"What for?" he inquired mistrustfully.
"Because I ask you."
He yielded to my request; he kissed me several times, mingling the caresses with broken speech.
"I am sure you are going to confess," he said, "quite sure: you know how hard it would be for me to leave off being fond of you--I am sure you will."
I looked at him blinded by tears; then I rose, untwined my arms from around his neck, and left him--I had accepted my destiny. Cornelius rose too, pale with anger.
"Do you mean to brave me?" he asked indignantly.
I did not answer.
"Daisy," he said again, "I hear a step--I give you another chance-- confess before Kate or Miriam enters--a word will suffice."
But my lips remained closed and mute.
"Just as you like," he exclaimed, turning away angrily.
The door opened and Miriam entered, pale and calm, in her white robes.
"I am come early, you see," she said in her low voice, so sweet and clear. "Well, what is the matter?" she added, looking at us both with sedate surprise.
"Look and see, Miriam! look and see!" replied Cornelius, with bitterness and emotion in his voice.
Miriam slowly came forward. She looked at the picture, then at me.
"Well," she said, "it is a pity certainly, a great pity, but it is only a picture after all."
"Only a picture!" echoed Cornelius.
"Yes," she answered, "only a picture. I will sit to you again and you will do better."
"Oh, Miriam, Miriam!" he exclaimed, a little passionately, "it is not merely the loss of the picture that troubles me."
"What then?" she inquired, looking up at him.
"You ask?" he said, returning her glance; "ay, Miriam, you do not know, no one knows what that child has been to me! I have watched at night by her sick bed, and felt, that if she died, something would be gone nothing could replace for me. Child as she was and is still, I have made her my companion and my friend; she, more than any other living creature, has known the thoughts, wishes, and aspirations that are within me. I have taught her, and found pleasure in the teaching. I have cared for her, cherished her for years, and only loved her the more that I was free not to love her. She has been dear to me as my own flesh and blood, or rather all the dearer because she was not mine; for whilst she was as sacred to me as if the closest ties of kindred bound us, I found a pleasure and a charm in the thought that she was a stranger. Even now, much as she has injured me, guilty as she is, I feel what a bitter struggle it will be for me to tear her from my heart."
"Forgive her," gently said Miriam.
"Forgive her! she rejects forgiveness. Proud and obstinate in her guilt, she denies it; and I, who, when I called her up here this morning, incensed against her as I was, could yet, I thought, have staked my honour on her truth--I knew she was jealous, resentful and passionate, but not even in thought would I have accused her of a lie."
"Then you did not take her in the act?" thoughtfully asked Miriam.
"No, this was evidently done last night."
"How do you know it was she did it?"
"There was no one else to do it."
"What proof is that? She is not bound to prove her innocence. It is you who are bound to prove her guilt. There is a doubt--give her the benefit of it."
"A doubt!" he exclaimed almost indignantly,--"a doubt! why, if I could feel a doubt, Miriam, I would not in word, deed, look, or thought, so much as hint an accusation against her. A doubt! would to God I could doubt! But it is impossible: everything condemns her." He briefly recapitulated the proofs he had already brought forward against me.
"After this," he added, "what am I to think?"
"That you have some secret enemy," calmly replied Miriam.
"Is he a magician?" asked Cornelius; "could he drop from the skies to work my ruin? But absurd as is the supposition that one so unknown could have such a foe, it is contradicted by a simple fact--the chair which I myself placed against the window is there still. Oh no, Miriam, my enemy came not from without; my enemy is one whom I brought home one evening in my arms, wrapped in my cloak; who has eaten my bread and often drunk from my cup; who has many a time fallen asleep on my heart; whom I have loved, cherished, and caressed for three years."
This was more than my bursting heart could bear. I had stood apart, listening with bowed head and clasped hands, apathetic and resigned. I now came forward; I placed myself before him; I looked up at him; my tears fell like rain and blinded me, but through both sobs and tears broke forth the passionate cry, "Cornelius, Cornelius, I did not do it."
And I sank on my knees before him; but to protest my innocence, not to implore pardon.
"You hear her," he said to Miriam, and he looked down at me--moved indeed, but, alas! his face told it plainly--unconvinced.
For awhile we remained thus. I could not take my eyes from his; words had failed, but I felt as if spirit should speak to spirit, heart to heart, and breaking the bonds of flesh, should bear the silent truth from my soul to his, and stamp it there in all its burning reality.
He stooped and raised me without a word. A chair was near him: he sat down, he took me in his arms; he pressed me to his heart, and never had his embrace been more warm and tender; he looked down at me, and never had his look been more endearing; he spoke--not in words of condemnation or menace, but with all the ardour of his feelings and the fervour of his heart. I wept for joy; I thought myself acquitted, alas! he soon undeceived me, I was only forgiven.
"Yes," he said, "I break my resolve, and here you are again, still loved and still caressed; for though _you_ have not reminded me of it, Daisy, _I_ remember I once declared there was nothing I would not forgive you, for the sake of the faith you one day here expressed in me. And I do forgive you; as I am a Christian, as I am a gentleman, on my honour, on my truth, I forgive you. Confess or do not confess, it matters not. I appeal not to fear of punishment, to gratitude for the past, to dread of the future, to conscience, or to love; I forgive you, and leave you free for silence or for speech."
I understood him but too well. Cornelius would no longer extort a confession; his own soul was great and magnanimous; he understood high feelings, and by this unconditional forgiveness he now appealed to me through the highest and most noble feeling of a human heart--generosity.
Hitherto, he had only thought me perverse and obstinate; with a silent pang of despair I felt I was now condemned to appear mean and low before him. For he looked at me with such generous confidence; with such trust and faith in his aspect; with something in his eyes that seemed to say with the triumph of a noble heart, "You have wronged me, you have deceived me, but I defy you to resist this!" He waited, it was plain, for a confession that came not. At length he understood that it would not come. He put me away without the least trace of anger, and said, in a voice of which the reproachful gentleness pierced my heart--
"You cannot prevent me from forgiving you, Daisy."
With this he turned from me, and removing Medora from the easel, he began looking out for another canvas of the same size. Miriam had looked on, seated on the couch with motionless composure, her calm, statue-like head supported by her hand. She turned round to say--
"What is that for, Cornelius?"
"To begin again, if you do not object. I have already thought of some changes in the attitude."
She looked at him keenly, and not without wonder.
"You soon get over it," she said.
"Why not?" he asked quietly; "do not look astonished, Miriam; I can no more linger over regret than over anger. For me to feel that a thing is utterly lost, is to cease to lament for it. The work of days and months is utterly ruined; be it so, I have but to begin anew."
Miriam rose and went up to him as he stood before his easel, somewhat pale, but as collected as if nothing had happened.
"Forgive her," she whispered, "for my sake," and she took his hand in her own.
"I have forgiven her, Miriam," he replied, giving her a candid and surprised glance: "did you not hear me say so?"
"From your heart?"
"From my heart," he answered frankly.