Bressant, as he walked on to the Parsonage, was possessed by an undefined conviction that he was learning a great deal not set down in the books.  The page of the passions, once thrown open, seems to comprise every thing.  The world has but one voice for the man of one idea.

Evidently, this man did not comprehend the nature of his position between these two women.  Reason told him it was impossible he could love both at once; but there her information stopped.  His senses assured him that, with Cornelia, he experienced a vivid rush of emotion, such as Sophie, strongly as he loved her, never awakened in him; but his senses could give him no explanation of the fact.  His instinct whispered that he would not have dared, in his most ardent moments, to feel toward Sophie as he invariably felt toward her sister; but no instinct warned him of the danger which this implied.  A sturdy principle, if it had not thrown light upon the question, would, at least, have pointed out to him the true course to adopt; but, unfortunately, principles, and the impulses which they are formed to control, are neither of simultaneous nor proportionate growth.  Bressant, while partaking so liberally of emotional food, had quite neglected to provide himself with the necessary and useful correctives to such indulgences.  Thus it happened that when he arrived, a little past his usual hour, at the Parsonage-door, his mental digestion was in a very disturbed condition.

In palliation of Cornelia’s conduct, there is little or nothing to be adduced.  Strong forces had been laboring within her during the last few months.  Love, disappointment, a passionate nature, a sense of wrong—­not least, her New-York experience—­had developed, warped, and transformed her.  Bressant’s homage had been the first, of any value to her, which she had ever received.  It had come unasked and unexpected, and had been all the more attractive, because there was something not quite regular about it.  Being lost, she had felt a fierce necessity for repossessing it, under whatever form, under whatever name.  To-day, it was but the turn of the conversation that had suggested the expedient of calling herself his sister.

The very beauty and purity of the fraternal relation cloaks the miserable rottenness of the imitation.  So innocent does it seem, it might almost deceive the parties to the deception themselves.  “I may love him, for I’m his sister!” said Cornelia; but could she in reality have become his sister, she would, beyond all else, have shrunk from it.  “Nothing I do is in itself an impropriety,” she could say:  but her secret sense and motive were enough to make the most innocent act criminal.  She closed her ears to the inner voice, and her eyes, looking at her conduct only through the crimson glass of her desire, pronounced it good.

She walked swiftly, immersed in thought, along the October road, beneath the splendid canopy, and over the gorgeous strewn carpet, of the dying trees.  She was going to call on Abbie, it having occurred to her that perhaps the kind of information she wanted concerning Bressant might be forthcoming there.  Presently, the rapid rise in the road at the end of the level stretch checked the current of her ideas, and threw them into confusion.  Out of the confusion rose unexpectedly one.