Henri gently raised her and drew her on his knee. She made no resistance, but threw her arms around his neck; her head sank wearily upon his shoulder, and joy and sorrow, deadly horror and sweet content, began to mingle strangely.
"Oh, do not give way!" said Henri to himself, while his throbbing heart seemed ready to burst. He cradled her in his arms as if she had been a child, and breathed upon her cold hands.
Gradually her tears ceased, and warmth returned to her cheeks and hands. Never is a woman more grateful or more susceptible to love than when a great sorrow has broken her strength, and she gropes helplessly for some support. At this moment Cornelia could have worshiped her lover as some superior being; all suspicion was forgotten, she clung to him as if he were some consoling angel.
"Cornelia, are you happy now that you are clasped to my heart?" whispered Henri.
"Oh, infinitely happy!" she murmured. "What should I be without you, my life? Now I am cast wholly upon you, you will never forsake your orphaned love?"
Henri strained her to his breast with almost suffocating violence, and exclaimed from his inmost heart, with the utmost sincerity, "If I ever forsake you, accursed be the hour when I was born, the couch on which I rest, the air I breathe, the lips with which I kiss! I raise my hand and call upon all the powers of evil to witness against me if I break my oath."
Cornelia laid her finger on his lips. "Do not be so violent; that is no oath, but a curse."
"Is it not equally binding?"
"Certainly; but it makes me anxious: as if there would be no blessing upon it; as if you felt the possibility of becoming faithless, and your better self was threatening you with punishment."
"You angel! Look me in the eyes; do you no longer believe in your Heinrich, and yet love him still?"