friends, the
protection of truth, and, above all, and worst of all, her own
self-respect. All these in exchange for a baffled, angry, selfish man,
at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in
self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he
would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The
one word was--she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in
it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. She can rely on
nothing else.

But Cornelia would not be disheartened. If she saw the rocks ahead,
against whose fatal shoulders she was being swept--if she heard, dinning
in her ears, the rush and roar of the headlong, irresistible rapids--if
her eyes could penetrate the void which opened darkly beyond--she only
nerved herself the more resolutely, her glance was all the firmer, her
determination the more unfaltering.

The peril in which she stood but kindled in her heart a fiery depth of
passion, such as overtopped and tamed the very terrors of her position.
Because she must lose the world to gain her end, that end was exalted,
in her thought, above a hundred worlds. The faculties of her soul,
which, in her time of innocence and indifference, had been dormant--half
alive--now sprang at once into an exalted, fierce vitality. The hour of
evil found Cornelia a creature of far higher powers and more vigorous
development than she could ever, under any other conditions, have
attained. She showed most gloriously and greatly, when illuminated by
that lurid light whose flame was fed by all that was most gentle,
womanly, and sweet within her. She looked nearest to a goddess, when she
needed but one step to be transformed into a demon.

In following out her psychological progress, we have necessarily
outstripped, to some extent, the sober pace of the narrative. It was
about the first of December that rumors began to be circulated in the
village of an approaching ball at Abbie's. It was to be the
grandest--the most complete in all its appointments--of any that ever
had been given there. It was looked upon, in advance, as the great event
of the year. Real, formal invitations were to be sent out, printed on a
fold of note-paper, with the blank left for the name, and
"R.S.V.P."--whatever that might mean--in the lower left-hand corner.
There were to be six pieces in the band; dancing was to be from eight to
four, instead of from seven to twelve, as heretofore; and