"Secretly, I believe."
"Yes: one evening your mother, then a girl of your age, left her father's house; she never came back, and died, soon after your birth, a disobedient, unforgiven child."
I was sitting by Cornelius with my hand in his, and my head resting on his shoulder.
"He is not my father," I thought, "yet never could I forsake him thus."
He continued:
"This you know, but I scarcely think you know how bitterly your father repented this act of his youth. He often spoke of it to me. 'Cornelius, never rob a man of his child,' he said, 'it is a great sin.' He was right, Daisy; it is a great sin; I felt it then; I feel it far more now; for though you are not my child, I have reared you, and I know that affection is jealous; that to resign a daughter to a stranger, must always be bitter, but that to have her actually stolen from you; to be robbed of the pleasant thing which has for years been your delight and pride, to feel that it is gone beyond recall, the property of another, I know that this is too sharp a pang for speech, almost for thought. I have thought of such a thing; I have thought that another man might step in between you and me, that he might rob me, whilst I looked on powerless and deserted. My God!" he suddenly added, pressing me closer to him, his eyes kindling, his lips trembling, "I have also thought that if it were not for your sake, there was nothing I would not have the heart to do to that man."
"You have thought that?" I said, reproachfully, "as if such a thing could ever happen, Cornelius."
"If I speak so," he replied, "it is to show you what may be the feelings of the wronged father, and when he is a high-minded man like your father, of him by whom he had been wronged. It was the knowledge of this that made me take you to Mr. Thornton. Oh, how could I be so blind as to call in a stranger to share with me the exclusive and precious privilege Heaven had bestowed, but which I knew not then how to prize! You know, Daisy, that when you were at Mrs. Gray's, I wrote to Mr. Thornton, to obtain back again the boon my folly had forfeited; he cared little for you; he knew you were fretting to return; he consented, but on a condition, to the fulfilment of which I pledged my word--that word, Daisy, which it is death to a man's honour to break--that, whenever he wished it, you were his to claim. He was abroad then, but he returned about a week ago, and his first act has been to write and remind me of my promise."
"You pledged yourself for me, Cornelius?" I said dismayed.
"Oh! Daisy, forgive me. I acted as I thought your father would have wished me to act; besides, I could not have had you otherwise."
"And Mr. Thornton actually wants me!" I exclaimed desperately.
"Yes," sadly replied Cornelius.
"But I do not want him; I will not have him, or his wealth, Cornelius."
"He offers you no wealth, my poor child. Every one knows that his extravagance has made him poor; the estate is mortgaged and entailed; his personal property is small; he has little to give, nothing to bequeath.
He is still, as when you knew him, wrapped up in his books."
"Then what does he want me for, Cornelius?"
"To be the charm of his home, and the delight of his heart and eyes,"
replied Cornelius, in a voice full of love, fondness, and sorrow. "To be to him all that you have been, and never more can be to me. I knew not how to value you formerly; and now that you have become all I could imagine, I am not allowed to possess you in peace! Scarcely have I recovered from the dread of seeing you throw yourself away on a mere boy, scarcely do I deem myself secure, when peril comes from the quarter whence I least feared it, and I am despoiled of my heart's best treasure."
"If you liked me," I said, in a low tone, "you would not, because you could not give me up."
"If I liked you!" began Cornelius, but he said no more.
"Yes, if you liked me!" I exclaimed in all the passion of my woe; "if you liked me, Cornelius, you would feel what I feel--that such a separation is like death. Tell me that your art requires your absence, I can bear it; tell me that you are too poor to keep me, that I must go, and earn my bread amongst strangers, and I shall bear that, too; for I shall look to a happy future, and a blessed reunion. But this--this, Cornelius, my very heart shrinks from it. I feel that you are to follow one path; and that, though my very being clings to you and Kate, I must tread in another, and see you both for ever receding from before my aching eyes. I am not yet eighteen, Cornelius, and I am so happy! I cannot afford to waste my youth, and throw away my happiness; and if you cared for me, would you not feel so, too?"
I spoke with involuntary reproach.
"Oh, Daisy!" he exclaimed so scornfully that I immediately repented, "you think me indifferent, because, not to add to your grief, I am silent on mine. You speak of your sorrow; you do not ask yourself what will be to me the cost of this separation. How shall I return alone to the home we left together this morning? What shall I say to Kate--to Kate who reared you--when she asks me for her child'? Why here am I actually giving up to a total stranger, the very thing I most long to keep; here am I taking you from my home, and leading you to the home of another; here am I placing you in the very circumstances that are likely to make me lose you for ever. You are young, Daisy, very young. You will be flattered, caressed, seduced out of old affections, almost unconsciously; and I shall not be there to guard my rights. I know that absence, time, the world will conspire to efface me from your heart; I know it, and yet I accept this."
"But why so?" I asked; "why so?"
"Because," he replied, with a fixed look, and compressed lips, "because to keep even you, Daisy, with the sense of my own engrossing selfishness, violated honour and trust betrayed upon me, would be gall and wormwood to my soul."
"But it is not you who keep me, Cornelius, if it is I who insist on remaining; if I disobey you, brave your authority, say you had no right to pledge yourself for me, and that, whether you like it or not, I will stay with Kate, what can you do then?"
His colour came and went; he turned upon me a strange, troubled look; his lip quivered; he took my hand in his, and almost crushed it, then dropped it as if it were fire.
"Tempt me not," he said, in a low tone, turning away his look as he spoke. "Tempt me not, for God's sake. I am but flesh and blood--I cannot always answer for myself. There are bounds to self-denial, and limits to self-subjection."
I did not answer, but I passed my arm around his neck, and I laid my head on his shoulder.
"Daisy, Daisy, my child!" he exclaimed, "do you know what you are doing?
Do you know what it is you want to make me do?"
I did not reply; but I wept and sobbed freely. He looked at me one moment, turned away, looked again, and turned away no more. He pressed me to his heart--he bent over me--he hushed my grief--he kissed away my tears.
"Be it so," he said, desperately. "I have resisted your dangerous tenderness, I cannot resist your grief. Yes, I will break my word to the living, my duty to the dead. I will let it be said of Cornelius O'Reilly, to gratify his own desires he betrayed his trust--he meanly deceived the ignorant affection of the child he had reared. Let those alone dare judge me who, like me, have been tempted."
"Then you do keep me!" I exclaimed, laughing and crying for joy.
"Oh! yes, I do keep you," he replied, bending on me a look that seemed as if he would attract and gather my whole being into his--a look that, through all my blindness, startled me: but, as it lasted--for a moment only. "Yes, I keep you, Daisy Burns. You have asked to remain with me, and you shall. I will bind you to my home and to me by bonds neither you nor others shall dare to break. Again I say, let those alone who have passed through this fiery trial, and conquered, dare to judge me."
I wondered at the repressed vehemence of his tone--at the defiance of his look--at the mingled trouble and scorn which I read in his countenance, usually so pleasant and good-humoured. I wondered, for I felt not thus, as if striving against my own wishes, and arguing with some hidden enemy.
With my head still reclining on his shoulder, my hand in his, my mind, heart, and whole being conscious that we were not to be severed--I felt steeped in peace and serene happiness. My eyelids, heavy with recent tears, could almost have closed in slumber, so deep were now the calm and repose that had followed this storm of grief.
Therefore I wondered--I could not but wonder--that if he, too, felt happy, there should be in his look and mien so few of the tokens of joy-- for, surely, joy never wore that flushed aspect and troubled glance. It shocked me to see that the meaning of his face was both guilty and resolute--that he looked like one who does a wrong thing, who knows it, but who will do that thing, come what will. He detected my uneasy look, and said, quickly:
"Never mind, Daisy; I take on myself the deed and the sin. I care not for the world's opinion--I care not for its esteem."
"The world, Cornelius! Why what can it say?"
"Accuse me of selfishness. But I say it again: I care not."
I laughed. He gave me a look of pain.
"Do not laugh so," he said; "do not. I never yet heard that light, girlish laugh of yours, but it presaged some new irritating torment. What are you going to say now?"
I saw his temper was chafed. I answered, soothingly:
"What can I say, Cornelius, save that only your sensitive conscience could imagine the accusation of selfishness? Those who think you selfish must be crazed. Why here am I to keep, a girl of seventeen, with little or no money, and you not a rich man yet! Why any other man would think me a bore--a burden--and be glad enough to get rid of me. But you are so disinterested, so generous, that you cannot see that."
I felt more than I saw the change which these words wrought on Cornelius.
It was not that his look turned away; it was not that the arm which encircled me, released its hold; but it was as if a cold shadow suddenly stepped in between us: the life and warmth departed from his clasp; the light and meaning of his look retreated inwardly, to depths where mine could not follow.
"You think me disinterested and generous," he said at length. "Do you mean that I do not care about you?"
"No, Cornelius, I know better; but your affection is disinterested. Oh!
my friend, my more than father, though you could not be my father, how often have I felt that other girls might well be jealous of me, if they but knew, as I know, what it is to have a friend, who is not bound to you by the ties of blood, yet in whom you can trust utterly; on whom you can rely without fear--as I do with you, Cornelius."
"Do not," he replied, half pushing me away, and averting his face, "do not, Daisy. I dare not trust myself more than I would trust any other man; and, if I were you, I would not trust the man who could break his word--even for my sake."
The words startled me; they woke a chord which, do what I would, I could not lull to sleep or silence. His look and tone as he said, "if I were you, I would not trust the man who could break his word--even for my sake," told me that the sting of his broken word and tarnished honour had already entered, and would never again leave his soul. Then I saw and felt my selfishness in not redeeming his pledge, in dragging him down from that just pride which he took in his unblemished life. I saw, I felt it all, and there rose within me one of those agonizing struggles without which we should not know the power of life; which are the new and bitter birth of our being.
Kate and Cornelius O'Reilly had the deep religious feeling of their race.
They made not religion the subject of frequent speech, but they bore its love in their hearts; above all, dear and sacred in their home, was held the name of their Redeemer and their God. His spirit, the spirit of self- denial and sacrifice, appeared in their lives, obscured by human weakness no doubt, but a living spirit still. How much had Kate done for her brother! How much had that brother done for me! What had I ever done for either? Nothing, nothing. And now that the hour was come, the hour of self-renonciation, I refused to bear my burden: I cast it on Cornelius. I knew how sacred he held a promise; how galling it would be for him to feel within himself the consciousness of violated truth. I knew it, and with this knowledge came the dread conviction that I was not free; that duty, honour, love, all enjoined the same fatal sacrifice.