Beyond doubt it would have been safer to have steadily and fearlessly kept the end in view from the outset:  for the full horror of it would have been visible while yet there was time to change our minds.  Few people have the nerve to jump from a precipice, or stand in way of a railway-engine, without first shutting their eyes, and perhaps their ears also.

In Cornelia’s mind there was no intention of ruining her sister’s happiness by interfering between her and Bressant; but then she did not think it likely that to lose him would occasion Sophie any thing more than a temporary and comparatively trifling degree of suffering.  If she could allow her love for him to depend upon the immaculateness of his moral character, she did not love him as much as Cornelia, to whose affection any considerations of that kind were immaterial.  What, after all, was Sophie’s love but an idealization, which had, to be sure, taken Bressant as its object, but which placed no vital dependence upon him?  But Cornelia’s love was to her a matter of life and death:  she was quite convinced that to live without Bressant would be an impossibility.

The next question was, whether Bressant was really as good as Sophie believed him to be.  Cornelia did not think he was.  Perhaps a secret sense of his attitude toward her suggested her suspicions; perhaps they were the result of her New-York experience, which had taught her just enough about men to make her imagine there was more or less of dark and indefinite villainy in the composition of all of them; perhaps it was her wish that fathered her moral misgivings about him—­for it must be confessed that Cornelia was very far from shrinking at the idea of seeing her suspicions verified.

Indeed, was it not, on all accounts, desirable that, whatever objectionable points and passages the young man’s life-record contained, should be at once forthcoming?  Cornelia could not restrain a feeling of satisfaction at the growing conviction that it would be doing Sophie a kind and friendly service to inform her, in time, what a reprobate she was about to marry—­if he only could be proved a reprobate!  This question of proof was the only one difficulty in Cornelia’s way; all the rest was as clear and easy as is generally the case in such matters.

It would not do to lie about it:  Cornelia had a natural if not a moral disinclination to falsehood, and was, moreover, acute enough to see how strong, in this case, would be the chances of detection.  It was not likely that Sophie would accept upon hearsay any imputations or accusations against her lover:  she would speak to Bressant at once; the lie would be revealed, and the result would be not only a failure to alienate Sophie from him, but a certainty of alienating him from Cornelia.

No; her reliance must be placed upon facts.  Whatever she could hear to the young man’s disadvantage that was true, beyond the possibility of his denial, that she must at once make known to Sophie:  it was no less than her duty.  Or, better still, why would it not be enough simply to inform Bressant of her dark discovery, and compel him, by the threat of revelation, to give up Sophie of his own accord!  Cornelia, in congratulating herself upon this shrewd idea, did not perceive how entirely it transformed the whole aspect and spirit of her intention.