Bressant

After climbing to such a height, it was terrible to fall. Cornelia

had not allowed herself to anticipate the disaster, precisely because

it was so crashing. In a moment the great, rainbow-tinted bubble of her

hope and imagination had burst, leaving only a bitter and unpleasant

sense of the paltry and unclean materials--the soap-suds and

clay-pipe--wherewith it had been created.

Furthermore, the polite fictions which she had lubricated her conscience

withal, regarding her desires and intentions, were shown up at precisely

their true value, and a very discreditable spectacle they made. Nothing

is more exasperating after a failure than to be stared out of

countenance by the unworthy means we have employed. During her progress

up-stairs to the dressing-room, and brief stay there, Cornelia had ample

leisure to review her thoughts and deeds during the latter months of her

life. What a waste of time, opportunity, and emotion! It was a tragedy

of ridicule and a farce of profound pathos.

Her perception of these things was assisted by the depression which

reacted upon her previous excitement: it had an embarrassing way of

presenting, in the clearest colors, whatever in her conduct had been

most unwise and indefensible. She could have borne it easily had there

been as much as one stirring struggle for victory, even had the struggle

resulted in defeat. Her state of mind might have borne analogy to his

who, having deeply caroused overnight in celebration of some glorious

triumph, learned, upon coming to his racked and tortured senses the next

day, that it was a triumph for the other side.

Had the sense of despair been less overwhelming, had Cornelia been

merely disappointed, rage would have taken the place of depression, and

her thoughts would have run in far different channels. But there was no

hope: this was her last chance of all: hereafter a rampart would be

erected against her, which she neither was able nor dared to scale.

There was no element in her position that could make it endurable, and

yet there was no escape. She had not enough spirit of enterprise left to

return home at once, but yielded herself with torpid insensibility to

whoever chose to make a suggestion. She wonderingly speculated as to how

she had ever been able to originate an idea herself.

The evening dragged its slow length along, and dragged Cornelia with it.

To be where she was, was insupportable; but to go back to the Parsonage

was worse still; and the thought of the solitary drive thither with the

overflowing Mr. Reynolds filled her with a nauseating pain of

anticipation.

It could not have been far from midnight when she awoke to a sense of

being alone and not far from the side-door into the yard. Her

partner--whoever he was--had gone to get her some ice-cream or a cup of

coffee. Cornelia did not wait for his return, but walked quickly and

unobserved to the door, which stood a few inches ajar, opened it, passed

through, and stood in the unconfined air. The keen intensity of the

tonic made her nostrils ache, and her uncovered bosom heave. She

unbuttoned one of her gloves, and, taking some snow in her hand, pressed

it to her warm temples, and then let it drop shivering into her breast.