With a sudden impulse, the young man bent down and raised in his arms the light and childish form. But she struggled for freedom.
“Ah! no, no!” she shrieked, “I will go with thee, my father!”
“Lilia—child—in mercy!—you harrow my soul!”
Instantly she was motionless, but her face became like death, as it rested on the bosom of her supporter, and from beneath her delicate lids the large tears stole silently.
Deeper and more labored became the respiration of the dying man; and as the agony of death wrung the drops from his working brow, he murmured unconsciously her name.
In a moment she was at his side, with her small arms clasped across his heaving chest, and her eyes turned eagerly upon his face.
“Lilia! my precious one—my child! her blessing, not mine, rest upon thee!”
“Thine! thine, my father!—Leave me thine!”
He raised himself in his bed, and with her little hands clasped in his own, spoke solemnly, and in a firm voice.
“Not with the lips of purity, not with the heart of the upright man may I invoke a blessing on thee, my Lilia. But if love, perfect love, that has never known chill or change; that has kept thee inviolate in the midst of guilt, and lovely, though surrounded by corruption—if such can win a smile from Heaven, it is thine.”