“Mr. Payne at home?” inquired Mrs. Payne.
“Yes, ma’am,” answered the man, “he has been in some time, but has been busy with some gentleman in the library.”
“Some news for you from home, Enna, dear,” said Mrs. Payne quietly. “I suppose Mr. Payne thinks we have company with us, we are so musical, and he feels too tired to come up.”
“Very likely.” I answered with forced calmness, glad that her easy, happy disposition prevented her from feeling the sad apprehensions which had chilled my heart at the summons. I knew, from the expression of the waiter’s face, that something was wrong, and as I reached the lower hall he said to me, as he left me,
“Miss Cornelia’s very sick in the library, Miss Enna.”
I opened the library-door, and Heaven grant such another sight may never be presented to me again. On a lounge lay Cornelia, partly insensible, and before her knelt her father, not in trouble for her sickness only, but in anguish, deep, heart-rending anguish. In low tones he besought his child to open her eyes, to look at him, and tell him she did not despise him. I saw the insensibility was passing off, and I raised her head and moistened her lips with some water. As I took the water from the table, I saw on it a case of pistols, over which I hastily threw my handkerchief, though chilled and trembling with fear of I scarcely knew what. When I raised Cornelia, and Mr. Payne saw her returning consciousness, he shrunk, like a guilty thing, behind a large, old-fashioned screen, that stood partly in front of the lounge. Cornelia stared wildly around.
“Where is father?” she exclaimed, and before I could answer, she darted from the lounge, and was about leaving the room, when she heard his low, suppressed groan; quick as thought she was beside him. She covered his hands, that hid his face, with kisses—she soothed him with every affectionate endearing word, and as he cowered to the ground, she raised him as a mother would a child. They sat on the lounge together, her arms encircled him tenderly, while her lips rested on his brow, that was wrinkled with heavy lines of anguish.
“My dear, dear father,” she said, “have you forgotten your daughter, your Cornelia, who could not live without you? Come, come, I was only a little sick; it is all over now, and Enna Duval is here, to take care of us both. Come, cheer up; think of mother, and Tom, and Cassy, and all the dear ones. We are all left to you yet.”
Thus she tenderly soothed him, and I, seeing that she was so much stronger, thought I had better leave the room. As I put my hand on the door, Cornelia gave a low cry of alarm, I turned and saw that Mr. Payne was in violent convulsions. In a little while the best physicians in town were summoned, and Mr. Payne declared to be in great danger, for his disease was a raging brain fever. For days we watched beside his bed—Cornelia and I—for with nervous anxiety she kept every one from her father that she could. He raved incessantly of disgrace and crime, and during his agonized ravings, my poor friend would weep bitterly. I never saw such devoted tenderness as Cornelia displayed during this fearful illness. At one time death seemed almost inevitable, but as Mr. Payne possessed a good constitution, and had always been a man of regular habits, he rallied under this sickness, which would have proved fatal to most men. But when the delirium left him, and he opened his languid eyes beaming, though dimly, with the light of reason, their expression of anguish was painful indeed. Cornelia was beside him, her arms around him, and the sweetest, tenderest words of love fell from her lips to greet his returning senses.
“Then, my daughter,” he said in a low, feeble whisper, “you do not hate and despise your father.”