"Nothing, save that I did not do it."
I spoke faintly; for my head swam and I felt so giddy that I was obliged to take hold of the back of a chair not to fall.
Cornelius saw this; he turned away abruptly—he walked up and down the room—he hesitated; at length he stopped before me, took my unresisting hand in his, made me sit down on the couch, and sat down by me.
"Come," he said in a much milder tone, "I see what it is, I have terrified you—you are afraid to confess—that is it—is it not?"
"No, Cornelius."
"What is it then? dread of punishment?"
I shook my head.
"Shame?" he said in a low tone. "No? what then?"
"It is that I did not do it, Cornelius."
He dropped my hand.
"Take care!" he said in a low voice, menacing spite of its seeming gentleness; "take care! I have been patient, but I can be provoked. I may forgive an act of passion, of jealousy, of envy even, but I cannot forgive a lie."
I loved him, but my blood rose at this.
"Am I a liar?" I asked, looking full in his face; "have I ever been one?"
"Never," he replied, with some emotion, "and I will not consider this an act of deception, but as the result of fear, obstinacy, or mistaken pride. I will even add that I consider you incapable of deceit, for yesterday you betrayed your feelings concerning this picture and the original with singular imprudence, and both last night and this morning you have carried in your face the consciousness of your guilt. And now listen to me. You have defaced the work I prized, the image of her whom I loved; you have irritated, tormented, injured me, and yet I forgive you. Nay more; neither Kate nor Miriam shall know what has happened. I will spare one whom, spite of so many faults, I cannot help loving, this humiliation, and all on one condition—an easy one—confess."
"I cannot," I exclaimed passionately, "how can I?"
He interrupted me.
"Take care!" he said again, "do not persist. I speak calmly, but I am still very angry, Daisy. Do not presume—do not deny."
Oh yes! he was still very angry. His contracted brow—his restless look, that burned with ill-repressed fire—his lip, which he gnawed impatiently, told me that his wrath was only sleeping beneath seeming calmness. He would not let me deny, I could not confess; a strange sort of despair and recklessness seized me. I drew nearer to him. I flung my arms around his neck and laid my head on his bosom, feeling that if his wrath were to fall on me, it should at least strike me there. He did not put me away—very far from it—he drew me closer to him.
"Oh yes!" he said, looking down at me, "I am very fond of you, Daisy. Yes, I love you very much—you need not come here to tell me so—I know it, and never know it better than when you vex me: if you were to die to- morrow, I should grieve for days, weeks, and months, but for all that I am very angry, and you will do well not to provoke me."
Why did I find so strange a charm in his very wrath, that I could not resist the impulse which made me press my lips to his cheek?
"Yes," he observed, quietly, "you may kiss me too; but do not trust to that—not even if I kiss you—I am very angry."
"But you love me, Cornelius, you know you do; be as angry as you will, you cannot make me fear."
"Yes, I love you—you perverse child!" he replied, with a strange look; "but for all that, know what you have to expect. Confess, and I forgive you freely. Deny, and you will find me as pitiless in my resentment, as I am now free in my forgiveness. I will keep you in my home, it is true, but I will banish you from my arms and from my heart. I can, Daisy! Yes, as surely as your arms are now around my neck and your cheek now lies to mine, as surely as I now give you this kiss, will I abide by what I say."
He kissed me as he spoke, and very kindly too; yet his pale, determined face gave me not the faintest hope that I could move him. I looked at him, and he smiled, as with the consciousness of an unalterable resolve. This, then, was my fate—never more to be loved, cherished, or caressed by Cornelius. It rose before me in all its desolateness and gloom. One moment I felt tempted to yield, but conscience rose indignant, and pride spurned at the thought. I looked at Cornelius through gathering tears. I called him cruel, severe, and implacable in my heart, and yet I do not think I had ever loved him half so well; perhaps because the conviction on which he condemned me was so sincere, and, spite of his belief in my guilt, his love still so fervent.
"Well!" he said impatiently; for I was lingering, reluctant to leave that embrace which it seemed was to be my last. I drew my arms closer around his neck,—I kissed his brow, his cheek, his hand.
"God bless you for all your kindness!" I said, weeping bitterly; "God bless you, Cornelius!"
"What do you mean, child?" he asked.
"And God bless Kate, too," I continued, "though I have never loved her so well as you."
"Daisy!"
"I have but one thing to ask of you, Cornelius—kiss me once again."
"Not once but ten times when you confess, Daisy."
"Yes, but kiss me now."
"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 thoughyouhave not reminded me of it, Daisy,Iremember 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.
"But with an implied condition of confession, acknowledgment, or something of the sort?"
"No, I left her free to speak or be silent. She would not confess—not for that shall I retract what I granted unconditionally; but pray do not let us speak of it."
Miriam however persisted.
"It is true," she said, "that Daisy did not confess, but then she did not deny."
The look of Cornelius lit: it was plain he caught at this eagerly.
"Very true," he replied; "very true, Miriam, she did not deny."
He looked at me as he said it. I stood where he had left me, by his vacant chair. I looked at him too, and at Miriam, as she stood by him with one hand clasped in his, and the other resting on his shoulder, and I never uttered one word. In his longing desire to reinstate me in his esteem and efface the stain on my tarnished honour, Cornelius, seeing me still silent, could not help saying—
"It is so, Daisy, is it not?—you do not deny it."
I had been quiet until then; quiet and forbearing. I had not protested my innocence in loud or vehement speech, but in the very simplest words of denial. Accused, judged, sentenced unheard, I had not resented this; I had blessed my accuser and kissed the hand of my judge. I had not wearied him with tears, entreaties, or protestations. I had no proof to give him save my word, and if that was doubted, I felt I had but to be silent. Four times indeed I had stood before him and told him—what more could I tell him?—that I had not done it. He had not believed me, and I had borne with it, borne with that forgiveness which to me could be but a bitter insult; but even from him I could bear no more; even to him no longer would I protest my innocence. I had laid my pride at his feet, in all the lowliness and humility of love; it now rose indignant within me, and bade me scorn further justification.
"No, Cornelius," I replied, without so much as looking at him, "I do not deny it."
I stood near the door; I opened it, and left the room.
My temples throbbed; my blood flowed with feverish heat; I felt as if carried away by a burning stream down to some deep, fiery region, where angry voices ever raised a strange clamour, that perpetually drowned my unavailing cry—"I did not do it."
I know not how I reached my room; quietly and simply, I suppose; for when I recovered from this transport of indignant passion, I was lying on my bed and I was alone. I did not weep, I did not moan, I scarcely thought, but I drank deep of the cup of grief which had so suddenly risen to my lips. In youth we do not love sorrow, but when it comes to us we welcome it with strange avidity; there is a luxury, a dreary charm in the first excess of woe. True, we quickly sicken of the bitter draught; I had lain down with the feeling—"There, I am now as miserable as I can be, and yet I care not!" but, alas! how soon I grew faint and weary! how soon from the depths of my wrung heart I cried for relief to Him who knew my innocence, who had never wronged me, who, were I ever so guilty, would have never condemned me unheard!
What was it to me that Cornelius left me his love and his kindness, when I knew and felt, with a keener bitterness than words can convey, that I had for ever lost his esteem? Did I, could I, care for an affection from which the very life had departed? No; child as I was in years, something within me revolted from the mere thought of his tenderness and endearments. If he believed me guilty, then let him hate and detest me: sweeter would be his aversion than such fondness as he could bestow on one whom, the more he forgave her, the more he must despise.
This resentful feeling—better to be hated than weakly loved—bore with it no consolation. I still groaned under the intolerable load of so much misery. Spirit and flesh both revolted against it, and said it was beyond endurance; that, anything save that, I would bear cheerfully, but that I could not bear; that sickness would be pleasant, and death itself would be sweet in comparison. And as I thought thus, I remembered the time when I was near dying, when Cornelius wept over me, and I should have carried in my grave his regard as well as his tears, and I passionately questioned the Providence that rules our fate. I asked why I had been spared for this? why I was thought guilty when I was innocent? why Cornelius disbelieved me? why there was no hope that I should ever be acquitted by him? why the only being for whose good opinion I would have given all it was mine to give, had been the very one to condemn me? Had I looked into my heart, I might there have found the stern reply—"By his idol let the idolater perish." But I did not. I only dwelt on the galling fact, that though guiltless, there was no hope for me, and I sank into as violent a fit of despair as if this were a new discovery. I wept passionately at first, then slowly, unconsciously. My head ached; my heavy eyes closed; I did not sleep, but I sank into the apathy of subdued grief.
I know not how long I had been thus when the door opened, and Kate—I knew her step—entered. She came up to my bed, bent over me, and seeing my eyes closed, whispered—
"Are you asleep, Daisy?"
A slight motion of my head implied the denial I could not speak. She took my hand, said it felt cold, went into the next room, whence she brought some heavy garment, with which she covered me. I felt rather than saw her lingering by me; then I heard her leaving the room softly. My heart swelled as the door closed on her. Not one word of faith or doubt had she uttered, and yet her voice was both compassionate and kind. It was plain that she too thought me guilty, pitied, and forgave me.
"Be it so!" I thought, with sullen and bitter grief: "let every one accuse me, I acquit myself; let no one believe in me, I keep faith in my own truth. I shall learn how to do without their approbation and their belief."
I remained in this mood, until, after the lapse of some hours, Kate once more came near me. Again she bent over me and asked if I slept. I opened my heavy eyes, but, dazzled by the light, I soon closed them again.
"Come down to dinner," she said gently.
"I am not hungry."
There was a pause; I fancied her gone, and looked; she was standing at the foot of my bed, gazing at me with a very sorrowful face.
"Daisy," she said, in her most persuasive accents, "have you nothing to say to me?"
I looked at her; her glance told me she asked for a confession, not for justification, so I replied—
"Nothing, Kate," and again closed my eyes.
She left me, but soon returned, carrying a small tray with a plate, on which there was some fowl and a glass of wine. She wanted me to eat. I assured her I was not hungry.
"Try," she urged; "I promised Cornelius not to leave you without seeing you take something."
To please her I tried, but she saw that the attempt sickened me; she pressed me to take the wine.
"Cornelius poured it out in his own glass," she said, "and tasted it before sending it up; so you must have some."
Wine seldom appeared on our frugal table; it had been forbidden to me as injurious; but Cornelius always left me some in his glass, which he made me drink slyly, whilst his sister pretended to look another way. I knew why he had now sent me this; it was a token of old affection living still, spite of what happened. I would not refuse the pledge: I sat up, and taking the glass from Kate, I raised it to my lips; but as I did so, the thought of the past thus evoked made my heart swell; a sensation of choking came upon me; I felt I could not swallow one drop, and laid down the glass untasted. Kate sighed, but she saw it was useless to insist, so, hoping I would try again in her absence, she left me.
I did not try: why should I? food sufficient to me were my tears and my grief renewed in all its bitterness by this incident. Why had Cornelius sent me this token of a communion from which the trust and the faith had for ever vanished? Why should I drink from his glass, whilst he thought me a liar? I ought not, and I resolved that I would not, until he had acknowledged my truth. I pushed away the tray from me; in doing so I saw that the covering Kate had thrown over me was an old cloak of her brother's. I recognized it at once: it was the very same he wore when he came to see me at Mr. Thornton's; the same in the folds of which he had wrapped and carried me, a weak and sickly child. I cast it away in a transport of despair and grief; he might care for me and cherish me again, but never more could he be to me what he once had been.
After awhile I became more calm, or rather I sank into the apathy which is not calmness. Lying on my bed I looked through the window which faced it, at the grey and cloudy sky. The preceding day had been clear and sunshiny; this was dark and overcast, one of those September days that bear something so dull, chill, and wintry in their mien. I watched my room grow dim, and felt it becoming more cold and comfortless as evening drew on; but it seemed not so dreary, and felt not so cold, as my desolate heart.
A well-known step on the stairs partly roused me. I listened; there was a. low tap at my door; I gave no answer; it was renewed, and still I was silent. Cornelius, for it was he, waited awhile and finally entered. Like his sister he came up to my bed and bent over me, but the room had grown dark; he drew back the curtain; I shaded my eyes with my hand; he moved it away.
"You are not asleep," he said, "look at me, Daisy."
I obeyed; he stood gazing at me with my baud in his; there was sadness on his face, and pity still deeper than his sadness. I dare say I looked a pitiable object enough. He glanced at the food untouched, at the wine untasted.
"You have taken nothing," he said, "not even a drop of the wine I sent you; why so?"
"I could not."
"Try again."
He wanted to raise the glass to my lips; but I pushed it away so abruptly, that half its contents were spilled. He made no remark; but feeling the dead-like dullness of my hand, he attempted to cover me with his cloak; I half rose to put it away; Cornelius took no notice of this either.
"Come down and have some tea," he said quietly; "this room is cold, but below there is a fire."
Mechanically I obeyed. I sat up, put back my loosened hair from my face, and slipped down on the floor. I followed him out, and I felt weak and giddy; I had to cling to him for support until we entered the parlour. It looked as I had so often seen it look on many a happy evening. The fire burned brightly; the lamp shed its mild, mellow radiance; the kettle sang on the fire; the white china cups and saucers stood on the little table ready for use, and Kate sat working as usual; but familiar as everything seemed, it was as if I had not entered that room for years. As we came in, Kate looked up and sighed, then made the tea in deep silence. Cornelius made me sit by the fire, and sat down by me; he handed me my cup himself; but I could not drink, still less eat. He pressed me in vain. If I could, I would have gratified him, for my abstinence proceeded not from either stubbornness or pride; I knew I should eat again, and to do it early or late could not humble or exalt me. Cornelius ceased to urge the point. The meal, always a short one with us, was over, the room was silent; I sat in an angle of the couch, my hand shading my weary eyes; perhaps my long fasting contributed to render me partly insensible to what passed around me, for Cornelius had to speak twice before he could draw my attention. When I at length looked up, I perceived that Kate had left the room; we were alone.
"Daisy," said Cornelius, very earnestly, "are you fretting?"
"Yes, Cornelius, I am."
"Do you then think me still angry with you?"
"No," I replied, rather surprised, "I know you are not."
"How do you know?" he asked, bending a keen look on me.
"You have said so, Cornelius, how then can I but believe you?"
I looked up in his face as I spoke, and if my eyes told him but half the feelings of my heart, he must have read in their gaze—"Doubt me if you like; I keep inviolate and true my faith in you." He looked as if the words had smote him dumb. For awhile he did not attempt to answer; then he observed rather abruptly—
"Well, what are you fretting about?"
I would not reply at first; he repeated his question. "Because you will not believe me," I answered in a low tone.
He gave me a quick, troubled gaze, full of fear and—for the first time— of doubt. He caught my hands in his; he stooped eagerly as if to read my very soul in my eyes: heavy and dim with weeping they might be, but their look shrank not from his.
"Daisy," he cried agitatedly, "I put it to you—to your honour—I shall take your word now—did you or did you not do it?"
I disengaged my hands from his, and clasped them around his neck, and thus, with my face open to his gaze like a book, I looked up at him sadly and calmly.
"Cornelius," I replied, "I put it to you: Did Daisy Burns do it?"
He looked down at me with an anxious and tormenting doubt that vanished before a sudden and irresistible conviction. Yes, I read it in his face: he who had so pertinaciously accused, judged, and condemned me, was now, as with a two-edged sword, pierced with the double conviction of my innocence and his own injustice. For a moment he looked stunned, then he withdrew from my clasp, rose, and walked away without a word, and sat down by the table with his back turned to me.
The heart has instincts beyond all the written knowledge of the wise. I rose and ran to him; he averted his face and put me away.
"Cornelius," I entreated, "Cornelius, look at me."
Without answering, he turned his face to me. Never shall I forget its mingled remorse and grief. He rose and paced the room up and down, with agitated steps. I did not dare to follow or address him; of his own accord he stopped short and, confronting me, took my two hands in his and looked down at me with a sorrowful face.
"If I had but wronged a man," he said, "one who could give me back insult for insult and wrong for wrong, I should regret it, but I could forgive myself; but you!" he added, looking at me from head to foot, "a girl, a mere child, dependent on me too, helpless and without one to protect or defend you against wrong—oh, Daisy! it is more than I can bear to think of!"
It did seem too galling for thought, for tears wrung forth by wounded pride rose to his eyes and ran down his burning cheek.
"Can you forgive me?" he added, after a short pause.
This was more than I could bear. Forgive him! forgive him to whom I owed everything the error of one day! I could not, and I passionately said I never would.
But Cornelius was peremptory, and, though burning with shame at so strange a reversion of our mutual positions, I yielded. I felt however as if I could never again look him in the face. But Cornelius had a faculty granted to few: he could feel deeply, ardently, without sentimental exaggeration. His mind was manly in its very tenderness. He had expressed his grief, his remorse, his shame; he did not brood over them or distress me with puerile because unavailing regrets over a past he could not recall. As he made me return to my seat and again sat by me, there was indeed in his look, in the way in which he drew me nearer to him, in the tone with which he said once or twice, "My poor child! my poor little Daisy!" something which told me beyond the power of language, how keenly he felt his injustice, how deeply he lamented my day of sorrow; but otherwise, his conscience acquitting him of intentional wrong, he accepted my forgiveness as frankly as he had asked for it.
Thus my troubled heart could at length rest in peace. Languid and wearied with so many emotions, I could yield myself up to the strange luxury and sweetness of being once more, not merely near him—that was little—but of feeling, of knowing, of reading in his face, so kindly turned to mine, that he believed in me. As I sat by him, his hand clasped in both mine, restored to what I prized even higher than his affection—his esteem, it seemed like a dream, too blissful to be true, and of which my eyes ever kept seeking in his the reality and the confirmation.
"Oh, Cornelius," I said once, "are you sure you do not think I did it?"
He looked pained at being reminded that he had thought me guilty.
"Have some wine," he observed, hurriedly, "I am sure you can now."
He went to the back parlour and brought out a glassfull. He took some himself, and made me drink the rest. It revived me. I felt I could eat, and I took some biscuits from the plateful he handed me. He watched me with a pleased and attentive smile, and in putting by both glass and plate, he sighed like one much relieved.
"When I was a boy." he said, sitting down again by me, "I caught a wild bird, and caged it, thinking it would sing; but it would not eat; it hung its head and pined away. I was half afraid this evening you were going to do like my poor bird."
"I hope I know better than a bird," I replied, rather piqued at the comparison, "and that was a very foolish bird not to take to the cage where you had put it—so kind of you."
"Very; yet, strange to say, it liked its cage and its captor as little as you on the contrary seem to fancy yours."
"Yes, but it is scarcely worth while putting or keeping me in a cage,Cornelius; I am very useless; I can't even sing—not a bit."
"Never mind," he replied, smiling, "I could better dispense with all the birds of the air than with you, my pet."
I thought it was very kind of Cornelius to say so, and to prefer me to nightingales, larks, black-birds, thrushes, and the whole sweet-singing race. I felt cheerful, happy, almost merry, and we were talking together gaily enough when the door opened, and Kate entered.
She had left me plunged in apathetic despondency; on seeing me chatting with her brother in as free and friendly a fashion as if nothing had happened, she looked bewildered. She came forward in total silence, and behind her came Miriam, who closed the door and looked at us calmly through all her evident wonder.
"It's a very wet night," observed Kate, sitting down opposite us and looking at me very hard.
"Is it?" said Cornelius, rising to give Miriam a chair, then returning to me.
"Very," rejoined his sister, who could not take her eyes from me, as, with the secure familiarity of an indulged child, I untwined one of his dark locks to its full extent, observing—
"It is too long; let me cut it off with Kate's scissors."
"No, 'faith," he replied, hastily, and shaking back his head with an alarmed air, as if he already felt the cold steel, "do not dream of such a thing. Cut it off indeed!" and he slowly passed his fingers through his raven hair, in the glossy and luxuriant beauty of which he took a certain complacency.
"Well!" said Kate, leaning back in her chair, folding her hands on her knees, and drawing in a long breath.
"Well, what?" coolly asked Cornelius.
"I never did see such a rainy night—never."
"How kind of you to come!" observed Cornelius, bending forward to look atMiriam.
She sat by the table, her arms crossed upon it, her eyes bent on us; she smiled without answering.
"You look pale and fatigued," he said, with some concern.
There was indeed on her face a strange expression of languor, weariness, andennui.
"Yes," she replied abstractedly, "I am weary."
"I am not going to stand that, you know!" exclaimed Kate, whose attention was not diverted from me. "Will you just tell me, Daisy, or rather you, Cornelius, what has passed between you and Daisy since I left the room."
Cornelius raised on his sister a sad look, which from her fell on me.
"I have found out a great mistake," he said, reddening as he spoke, "andDaisy has been good enough to forgive me."
"I wish you would not speak so," I observed, feeling ready to cry.
"My dear, Kate might blame me."
"No one has any right to blame you," I interrupted. "If I am your child, as you say sometimes, can't you do with me as you think fit?"
I looked a little indignantly at Kate, who did not heed me. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were flushed.
"A mistake!" she exclaimed eagerly, "that's right; I can't say I thought it was a mistake, but I always felt as if it were one. I never felt as if poor Daisy could be such a little traitor. How did he do it, Cornelius?"
"He?really, Kate, I don't know howhedid it, for I don't know whoheis."
"Some jealous, envious, mean, paltry little fellow of a bad artist," hotly answered Kate. "I can tell you exactly what he's like: he squints, he limps, he wears his hat over his eyes, and is always looking round to see that no one is watching him—I see him—you need not laugh, Cornelius, I can tell you sow he did it; he came in by Deborah's window, and escaped across the leads. He is an artist decidedly, and he was mixed up with the rejection of your Sick Child; can't you trace the connection?"
Cornelius did not look as if he could.
"Never mind," continued Kate, "I shall find him out, but you must give me the links."
"What links, Kate?"
"Why, how you found it out, of course?"
"Found out what, Kate?"
"Don't be foolish, boy: why, that it was not Daisy."
Cornelius stroked his chin, and looked at his sister with a perplexed air, then said—
"I don't think you will find it much of a link, Kate."
"Nonsense! a hint is enough for me, you know."
"Well, but if there is no hint at all?" objected Cornelius, making a curious face.
"No hint at all?" echoed his sister, rather bewildered.
"Kate," resolutely said Cornelius, "think me foolish, mad, if you like: the truth is, that I have found out the innocence of Daisy, as I ought to have found it out at once—by believing her."
"But where are the proofs?" asked Kate.
"I tell you there are no proofs," he replied with impatient warmth; "proofs made me condemn Daisy; I am now a wiser man, and acquit her on trust."
"No proofs!" said Kate, looking confounded.
"No, Kate, none, and I don't want any either."
"But you had proofs this morning, you said."
"You could not give me a better reason for having none this evening.Proofs are cheats, I shall trust no more."
Kate sighed profoundly and said in a rueful tone—
"Heaven knows how much I wish to believe Daisy innocent, but my opinion cannot turn about so quickly as yours."
"She did not do it, Kate," exclaimed her brother, a little vehemently, "she did not."
"You need not fly out: I never accused her."
"But I did: do not wonder that I defend her all the more warmly."
"But I do wonder," pursued Kate, with a keen look at me; "there is something in it; the sly little thing got round you whilst you were alone together. Oh, Cornelius, Cornelius! that child has made her way to your very heart. You would rather be deceived than think she did wrong."
"I am not deceived," he indignantly replied.
Kate did not answer, but kept looking at me in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable.
"Daisy is guiltless," continued her brother; "how I ever thought her otherwise is a mystery to me. Who has ever been more devoted to my painting than the poor child?"
Kate opened her lips, then closed them again without speaking. Cornelius detected this.
"Well," he said quickly, "what have you got to say, Kate?"
"Nothing!" she drily answered, with another look at me so searching and so keen that I involuntarily clung closer to Cornelius.
"Kate," he said again, looking from me to her, "what have you to say?"
There was a pause; Kate hesitated, then resolutely replied—
"The truth—which always insists on making itself known, no doubt because it is good that it should be known. I think, Cornelius, that you acquit Daisy as you condemned her—too hastily; but that is a part of your character: you detest to suspect—a generous, imprudent feeling. You make too much or too little of proofs. Now it so chances that I have got one which escaped you this morning, when you would have held it conclusive; which I kept quiet, but never meant to suppress. I shall make no comments upon it, but simply lay it before you."
Her looks, her words, the gravity with which they were uttered, alarmed me. In the morning I had trusted implicitly to my innocence for justification: then I could not understand how facts should condemn me, when conscience held me guiltless; but now I knew better. I looked at Cornelius; perhaps he was only astonished; I fancied he seemed to doubt. All composure, all presence of mind forsook me. I threw myself in his arms, as in my only place of hope and refuge.
"Cornelius," I cried in my terror, "don't believe it; I don't know what it is, but don't believe it—pray don't."
He looked moved, and said to his sister—
"Not now, Kate, not now."
"Nonsense!" she replied, "it is too late to go back."
"I think it is," assented Cornelius, looking down at me. But I threw my arms around his neck, and looking up at his face with all the passionate entreaty of my heart—
"You won't believe it, Cornelius, will you?" I asked; "it's against me, I am sure; but you won't believe it?"
"No, indeed," he replied, with some emotion, "I will believe nothing against you, my poor child."
The assurance somewhat pacified me. Kate, whom my alarm seemed to impress very unfavourably, observed drily—
"It is not a matter to make so much of, and I never said you could not explain it, Daisy; at all events here it is."
With this she drew forth from her pocket, and laid on the table, the filagree bracelet.
"Is that all?" asked Cornelius, seeming much relieved.
"I think it quite enough, considering where it was found," shortly saidKate.
"In the studio! What about it: was it not in the studio I gave it to her?"
"That is all very well, but I should like to know how it has got stained with the very same ochre that was used to daub the face of poor Medora."
"Even that is nothing, Kate; you know well enough that everything Daisy wears bears traces of the place where she spends her days."
Miriam had remained indifferent and calm, whilst all this was going on in her presence; she had not changed her attitude, scarcely had she raised her eyes, or cast a look around her. She now stretched forth her hand, took up the bracelet from the table where it lay, looked at it, laid it down again, and said very quietly—
"It is mine."
"Yours!" cried Cornelius.
"Yes, I know it by the clasp. I put it on this morning, and dropped it, I suppose, in the studio."
"There, Kate," triumphantly exclaimed Cornelius, "so much for circumstantial evidence!"
Kate looked utterly confounded.
"Yours," she said to Miriam, "yours? are you quite sure it is really yours?"
"Quite sure," was the composed reply.
Miss O'Reilly turned to me, and asked shortly—
"Why did you not say it was not yours?"
"I did not know it was not mine, Kate. I knew I had left mine in the studio."
"Then it is really yours!" said Kate, again turning to Miriam, who replied with an impatient "Yes," and an ill-suppressed yawn of mingled indifference.
"Truth is strong," rather sadly said Kate; "the bracelet which you put on this morning, Miss Russell, was picked op by me last night at the door of the studio."
Miriam gave a sudden spring on her chair; if a look could have struck Kate to the heart, her look would have done it then. But Kate only shook her handsome head, and smiled, fearless and disdainful.
"Yes," she said again, "I picked it up there last night, thought it was Daisy's, and, to give her a lesson of carefulness, I said nothing about it. This morning I suppressed it from another motive. Do you claim it still, Miss Russell?"
Everything like emotion had already passed from the face of Miriam. She had sunk hack on her seat; her look had again become indifferent and abstracted; her countenance again wore the expression of fatigue andennuiit had worn the whole evening. As Kate addressed her, she looked up, and very calmly said—
"Why not?"
I looked at Cornelius; his brow, his cheek, his lip, had the pallor of marble or of death: he did not speak, he did not move; he looked like one whose very last stronghold the enemy has reached, and who beholds his own ruin with more of silent stupor than of grief. At length he put me away; he rose; he went up to the table which divided him from Miriam; he laid both his hands upon it, and looking at her across, he bent slightly forward, and said, in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of his heart—
"Miriam, tell me you did not do it; Miriam!"
She did not reply.
"Tell me you did not do it—I will believe you."
Miriam looked at him; as she saw the doubt and misery painted on his face, something like pity passed on hers.
"Would you?" she said, with some surprise. "No, Cornelius, you could not, and even if you could, I would not prolong this. I might deny or give some explanation at which you would grasp eagerly; but where is the use?—I am weary." She passed her hand across her brow, as if to put by someheavy sense of fatigue, and looked round at us with an expression of dreary languor in her gaze which I have never forgotten. "I am weary," she said again; "for days and weeks this sense of fatigue has been creeping over me. The struggle to win that I never should have prized when won, is ended. I regret it not—still less should you."
"Miriam," passionately said Cornelius, "it is false, and you must, you shall deny it."
"I will not," Miriam replied firmly, and not without a certain cool dignity which she preserved to the last. "I tell you I am weary, and that if this did not part us, something else should."
A chair stood near Cornelius; he sat down, and gave Miriam a long, searching glance, that seemed to ask, in its dismay and indignant grief— "Are you the woman whom I have loved?"
"You never understood me," she said, impatiently. "You might have guessed that I had, from youth upwards, lived in the fever of passion inspired or felt; you might have known that I should master or be mastered. I warned you that though I could promise nothing, I should exact much, and you defied me to exact too much. Yet when it came to the test—what did you give me? a feeling weak as water, cold as ice! Why, you would not so much as have given up what you call Art for my sake!"
"Nor for that of mortal woman," indignantly replied Cornelius. "Give up painting! Do you forget I told you I would love you as a man should love?"
"That is, I suppose, a little more than Daisy, and something less than your pictures. I have been accustomed to other love."
Cornelius reddened.
"An unworthy passion," he said, "stops at nothing to secure its gratification; a noble one is bound by honour."
"I leave you to such passions," calmly answered Miriam; "to painting, which you love so much; to the domestic affections in which you weakly thought to include me. I have tried to make you feel what I call passion, I have failed; it is well that we should part; let us do so quietly, and without recrimination."
Cornelius looked at her like one confounded. She spoke composedly, as if she neither cared for nor felt that, on her own confession, she was guilty. Of excuse or justification she evidently thought not.
"You think of Daisy," she continued; "think of my conduct to her what you choose. I will only say this, though she, poor child, has hated me, as she loved you, with her whole heart, you have been, are still, and will remain, her greatest enemy."
"I!" indignantly exclaimed Cornelius.
"Yes: and you must be blind not to see that, by seeking to sever from you a child whom a few years will make a woman, I was her best friend; and so she will know some day, when you break her heart, and tell her you never meant it."
"May God forsake me when I place not her happiness before mine!" repliedCornelius, in a low tone, and giving me a troubled look.
"You are generous," answered Miriam, with an ironical, but not unmusical laugh, and looking at me over her shoulder with all the scorn of conscious beauty; "you think so now; but I know, and have always known, better. And yet, spite of that knowledge, and though with foolish insolence she ever placed herself in my way, I have felt sorry for her at times. Of course you will not believe this: with the exaggeration of your character, you will at once set me down as one delighting in evil; whereas what you call evil is to me only a different form of good, justifiable according to the end in view. If I had succeeded in inspiring you with an exclusive, all-engrossing passion—even though the cost had been a few pictures less, and the loss of Daisy's heart—know that I would have conferred on you the greatest blessing one human being can bestow on another."
Her eyes shone with inward fire; her cheeks glowed; her parted lips trembled. I do not think we had ever seen her half so beautiful. Cornelius looked at her, and smiled bitterly.
"I pity you," she said, with some scorn; "I pity you, to deride a feeling you cannot feel: know that I at least speak not without the knowledge."
"Oh, I know it," he exclaimed, involuntarily.
"You know it?"
"Yes," he replied, more slowly, "and I have known it long. One, whose pride you had stung, found means to procure letters written by you some years ago, and which proved to rue how ardently you had been attached to another—now dead, it is true. For a whole day I thought to give you up; but I was weak, I burned the letters, and said nothing. I loved you well enough to forgive you the tacit deceit; too well to think of humbling you by confessing that I knew it, and too jealously perhaps not to be glad to annihilate every token of a previous affection."
"Humbling me!" said Miriam, rising; "know that it is my pride. I felt not like you, Cornelius; I would have made myself the slave of him whom I loved, had he wished it."
She folded her hands on her bosom, like one who gloried in her subjection, and continued—
"Proud and wilful as I am,hecould bend me to his will. I mistook your energy for power, and thought you could do so too. I mistook my own heart, and thought I could feel again as I once had felt. Since I discovered the twofold mistake, there has been nothing save weariness and vexation of spirit to me. I knew it should end—do not wonder I am now glad and relieved that it is ended."
She spoke in the tone with which she had said "I am weary;" the lustre had left her eyes, the colour her cheek; her mien was again languid and careless. She cast an indifferent look around her, drew the silk scarf which she wore, closer over her shoulders, turned away, and left the room without once looking back.
A deep silence, that seemed as if it never could end, followed her departure. Kate sat in her usual place, her look sadly fixed on her brother. His face was supported and partly shaded by his hand. He neither moved nor spoke. At length his sister rose and went up to him. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and stooping, said gently—
"Cornelius!"
He looked up at her wistfully, and said, in a low tone—
"Kate, I thought her little less than an angel; what a poor dupe I have been!"
"But you will bear it," she said earnestly, "I know you will."
"Yes," he answered, though his lip trembled a little as he said it; "it is hard, but it is not more than a man can bear."
He rose as he spoke.
"Where are you going?" asked Kate, detaining him.
"Out; do not be uneasy about me, Kate."
"But it is pouring fast."
"Never mind."
His lips touched her brow—he left the room—we heard the street-door close upon him, and in the silence which followed, the low, rushing sound of the rain.
"Poor fellow! poor fellow!" sadly said Kate, and, looking at one another, we began to cry.