I looked up.
"Come here," he continued.
I rose and obeyed, and, standing before him, waited to hear what he had to say to me. He said nothing, but stretched out his arm and drew me on his knee, smiling as he met my startled look, and felt my heart beating against the arm that encircled me.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Oh no, Cornelius," I replied, but I felt astonished and happy at this unexpected return of kindness; so happy that, ashamed of it, I hid my face on his shoulder. He laughed because I would not look up, kissed my averted cheek, and finally compelled my burning face and overflowing eyes to meet his gaze.
"How perverse you have been!" he said, chidingly; "I don't know what tempted me to take any notice of you again; I am too fond of you, you jealous, sulky little creature."
His old affection seemed to have returned in all its warmth; his look had the old meaning, his voice the old familiar accent, his manner more than the old tenderness. When I saw myself again so near him, again petted, caressed, loved, how could I but forget Miriam, the past and the future, to yield to the irresistible charm of the moment? Oh! why was he so imprudently kind? Why, when I was growing almost accustomed to his indifference, almost resigned, did he unconsciously destroy the slow labour of weeks, and sow for us both the seed of future torment? But I thought not of that then, nor did he. If I was glad to be once more near him, I saw in his face—and it was that undid me—that he was glad to have back again the child of whom he had for more than two years been so fond. He caressed me as after a long separation, and smoothing my hair, asked the question he had often put to me during my lingering illness—
"What shall we talk about?"
"The Gallery," was my prompt reply.
"Will you never tire of it, my darling?"