It was half-past eight when they drew up at the boarding-house door.  No sooner had Cornelia set foot within the threshold, and caught sight of Abbie’s face, than it was borne in upon her that Bressant was not there; and the former, after questioning her about Sophie’s non-appearance, confirmed her fear.  He had not come, nor was it now probable that he would arrive before morning.  It would have been useless to expect him by the late train, due at half-past ten, since, to avail himself of that, it would be necessary to make a difficult connection by walking two or three miles from one railway to another.

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.