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."