"Daisy," he replied, in a tone of mingled pain and reproach, "where is the use of all this? If I could stay, indeed I would; but though I love you so much, that every tear you now shed seems a drop wrung from the life blood of my heart, believe me when I declare that though you should ask me to remain on your bended knees, I should still say no." "Then I shall try!" I exclaimed, despairingly; but before I could sink down at his feet, he had caught hold of both my hands, and compelled me to remain upright. Hope forsook me. "Cornelius," I said, weeping, "will you stay?" "No!" "Cornelius!" I exclaimed, more earnestly. "Will you stay?" This time he did not answer, but his half averted face showed me a profile severe, resolute, and inexorable. "You cannot weary me," I said again; "will you stay?" He turned upon me pale with wrath. "Oh! blind girl--blind to the last!" he cried, his white lips trembling. "You ask me to stay--to stay!" "Yes, Cornelius, again and again!" All patience seemed to forsake him. His eyes lit, his features quivered; he grasped my hands in his with an angry force, of which he was himself unconscious. "Come," he said, striving to be calm, "do not make me say that which I should repent. Let us part as it is--do not insist--do not provoke me to forget honour and truth." I could see that Cornelius was angry with me; that my obstinacy provoked him beyond measure; but his wrath was the wrath of love; it could not terrify me. I even felt and found in it a perilous pleasure, that made me smile as I replied: "But I do insist, Cornelius." His lips parted, as if to utter some vehement reply; then he bit them with angry force, and knit his brow like one who subdues and keeps down some inward strife. Kate quietly stepped up to us. "The knot that will not be unravelled must be cut," she said. "He will stay, Daisy, if you will be his wife." The words seemed sent, like a quivering arrow, through my very heart. Cornelius looked confounded at his sister, who only smiled; then he turned to me, flushed and ardent. As I stood before him, my hands still grasped in his--his face still bent over mine, half upraised--his look, overflowing with passion, reproach, love, anger, and tenderness, sank deep into mine, with a meaning that overpowered me. And yet, as if spell- bound by the strange and wonderful story thus, at once revealed to me, I could not cease to hear it. Kate had not spoken--she still spoke in words that echoed for ever. To speak myself, look away, return once more to the daily life beyond which that moment stood isolated, were not things in my power. I felt like one divided from Time by that immortal Present. "Oh, Daisy!" vehemently exclaimed Cornelius, "how you linger! 'No' should have been uttered at once; 'yes' need not tarry so long. Speak--answer. Must I stay or depart?" He spoke with the feverish impatience that will not brook delay.