feeling how he would yearn for her. The vengeance seemed to her so keen
that pity could not fail to come. Thus, to her contemplation, their
positions became reversed: it was Wilfrid now who stood in the darkness,
unselected. Her fiery fancy, unchained from the despotic heart,
illumined her under the golden future.

"Come to us this evening, I will sing to you," she said, and the
'Englishman under a rope' bowed assentingly.

"Sad songs, if you like," she added.

"I have always thought sadness more musical than mirth," said he.
"Surely there is more grace in sadness!"

Poetry, sculpture, and songs, and all the Arts, were brought forward in
mournful array to demonstrate the truth of his theory.

When Emilia understood him, she cited dogs and cats, and birds, and all
things of nature that rejoiced and revelled, in support of the opposite
view.

"Nay, if animals are to be your illustration!" he protested. He had been
perhaps half under the delusion that he spoke with Cornelia, and with a
sense of infinite misery, he compressed the apt distinction that he had
in his mind; which was to show where humanity and simple nature drew a
line, and wherein humanity claimed the loftier seat.

"But such talk must be uttered to a soul," he phrased internally, and
Emilia was denied what belonged to Cornelia.