Daisy by Marshall Saunders

IF we poor, short-sighted mortals had the planning of our lives, how strangely would they be laid out! I had imagined that the child was going to die, in order that her influence over the life that had become so strangely mixed up with hers might live. It had not occurred to me that the lad, thrown into a state of desperation and feeling himself branded as her murderer, might be tempted to some rash act. Thank heaven, he was not put to it. The child did not die, but lived to be a further blessing to him.

When he waked from his swoon, we were able to whisper in his ear that she had fallen into a quiet sleep-that possibly there had been a mistake made. He staggered to his feet, and sat by the sleeping child for a while, with a look of one who has received a reprieve from death, then went to his room and shut himself in. From that hour he was a different creature. The heavy stamp of affliction had been laid upon him. He was a man now, in the best sense of the word.