"Yes, Cornelius." His voice rose and rang with each question; mine sank with every reply. He darted at me a look of the keenest reproach. "Never," he exclaimed, with a fire and vehemence that startled me, "never have I loved you, or shall I love you so; never for a second in the past; never for a second in the future; never, Daisy, never!" And turning from me, he paced the room with hasty steps, a flushed brow, and angry look. At length he stopped before me; for, being somewhat calmer, the fire of his look seemed more earnest and concentrated, the accents of his voice more measured and deep. He said: "Confess you have been jesting." "No, Cornelius, I spoke as I thought." "And you thought that I liked you, as a father likes his child; I defy you to prove it! Since I returned from Italy, have I not done all I could to show you that your esteem, approbation, praise, and love were dearer to me than language could express? Have I not, through all our old familiarity, say, have I not mingled reserve and respect with all my tenderness? Have I not acknowledged the woman in you, and that in a hundred ways? The love of a father? I defy you to prove it, Daisy!" He again paced the room with angry steps. I followed him, and laying my hand on his arm, I said earnestly-- "Cornelius, you should not be angry with me. Have you forgotten that, before you went to Italy, you called me your adopted child? that in your letters you addressed me thus? That on the very evening of your return, when Kate seemed vexed about it, you were not displeased, though you are so angry now?" Cornelius turned a little pale. "I had forgotten it," he said bitterly, "but you forget nothing--nothing; years pass, and words spoken in the heedlessness of ignorance and the presumptuousness of youth, still live in your pitiless memory." "Cornelius," I said, gently, "is it a sin to remember the truth?" "The truth!" he echoed, indignantly, "do not call that the truth. I may have said it, been fool enough to have believed it, but true it has never been. Never, I tell you, never have I felt for you one spark of the affection a father feels for his child, never. Do not think, dream, or imagine such a thing. I deny it in every way in which man can deny. I would, were it in my power, efface from your mind every such remembrance of a past, beyond which we both should look." I began to feel startled. What did Cornelius mean? Why did he object so pertinaciously to a matter like this? I looked up at him and said earnestly-- "Cornelius, I do not understand at all why you are so vexed. Pray tell me." He looked down at me very fixedly. Every trace of ungentle passion had passed away from his features, and there was a strange, undefined tenderness in his gaze, as he said in a low tone-- "If I have been vexed. Daisy, it is to find out a mistake--a great mistake of mine." "What mistake, Cornelius?" "Do you really want to know, Daisy?"