She made believe that if
she looked up, she should now see him actually coming down the path
toward her; she held her eyes fixed upon the ground at her feet, and
then it seemed to her every moment that he was just going to take the
seat next her. The seat was already taken; a heavy German woman filled
it so solidly that no phantasm could have squeezed in beside her. But
the presence of Dickerson became so veritable that Cornelia started up
breathless, and hurried home, sick with the fear that she should find
him waiting for her there.

She was afraid to go out the next morning, lest she should meet him on
the street, though she knew that by this time he was a thousand miles
away.

At the Synthesis she was ashamed to let Charmian think that her absent
and tremulous mood had something to do with Ludlow; but she was so much
more ashamed of the shabby truth that she would have been willing to
accept the romance herself. This was very dishonest; it was very wicked
and foolish; Cornelia saw herself becoming a guilty accomplice in an
innocent illusion. She found strength to silence Charmian's surmise, if
not to undeceive her; she did her best; and as the days began to remove
her farther and farther from the moment of her actual encounter with
Dickerson, her reason came more and more into control of her
conscience. She tried not to be the fool of a useless remorse for
something she was at least not mainly to blame for. She had to make the
struggle alone; there was no one she could advise with; her heart shut
when she thought of telling any one her trouble; but in her perpetual
reveries she argued the case before Ludlow.

It seemed to her as if he had come to render her a final judgment when
his name was sent up to her room, that Saturday afternoon which ended
the longest week of her life. She went down, and found him alone in the
long parlor, and it was in keeping with her fantastic prepossession
that he should begin, "I wonder how I shall say what I've come for?" as
if he would fain have softened her sentence.

He kept her hand a moment longer than he need; but he was not one of
those disgusting people who hold your hand while they talk to you, and
whom Cornelia hated. She did not now resent it, though she was sensible
of having to take her hand from him.

"I don't know," she answered, with hysterical flippancy. "If I did I
would tell you."

He laughed, as if he liked her flippancy, and he said, "It's very
simple. In f