Till the Eleventh Hour

Bethinking herself that her father would be lost to her after the
revelation had taken place, Cornelia felt a consuming desire to enjoy
his love to the fullest possible extent during the interval. She wanted
him to call her his dear daughter--to hold her hand--to pat her
check--to kiss her forehead with his rough, bristly lips--to tell her,
in his gruff, kind voice, that she was a solace and a resource to him.
The thousand various little ways in which he had testified his
deep-lying affection--she had not noticed them or thought much of them,
so long as she felt secure of always commanding them--with what
different eyes she looked back upon them now. Oh! if they might all be
lavished upon her during these last few remaining hours or minutes.
Should she not go and sit down at his knee, and ask him to pet her and
caress her?

No; she would not steal the love for which her soul thirsted, even
though he whom she robbed should not feel the loss. She had stripped him
of much that would doubtless seem to him of far more worth and
importance; but, when it came to taking, under false pretenses, a thing
so sacred as her father's love, Cornelia drew back, and, spite of her
great need, had the grace to make the sacrifice. Let it not be
underrated: a woman who sees honor, reputation, and happiness slipping
away from her, will struggle hardest of all for the little remaining
scrap of love, and only feel wholly forlorn after that, too, has
vanished away.