When Ludlow found Charmian and not Cornelia waiting for him, he managed
to get through the formalities of greeting decently, but he had an
intensity which he had the effect of not allowing to relax. He sat down
with visible self-constraint when Charmian invited him to do so.
"Miss Saunders has just gone to her room; she'll be back in a moment."
She added, with wild joy in a fact which veiled the truth, "She is
writing a note."
"Oh!" said Ludlow, and he was so clearly able not to say anything more
that Charmian instantly soared over him in smooth self-possession. "We
were so sorry not to see you last night, Mr. Ludlow. It was a perfect
success, except your not coming, of course."
"Thank you," said Ludlow, "I was--I couldn't come--at the last moment."
"Yes, I understood you intended to come. I do wish you could have seen
Miss Saunders! I don't believe she ever looked lovelier. I wanted her
to go in costume, you know, but she wouldn't, and in fact when I saw
her, I saw that she needn't. She doesn't have to eke herself out, as
some people do."
Ludlow was aware of the opening for a civil speech, but he was quite
helpless to use it. He stared blankly at Charmian, who went on:
"And then, Cornelia is so perfectly truthful, you know, so sincere,
that any sort of disguise would have been out of character with her,
and I'm glad she went simply as herself. We were up so late talking,
that we slept till I don't know when, this morning. I forgot to wind my
clock. I suppose it's very late."
"No," said Ludlow, "it's so very early that I ought to apologize for
coming, I suppose. But I wished to see Miss Saunders----" He stopped,
feeling that he had given too rude a hint.
Charmian did not take it amiss. "Oh, Cornelia is usually up at all
sorts of unnatural hours of the day. I expected when she came here to
spend the week with me, we should have some fun, sitting up and
talking, but last night is the only time we have had a real good talk,
and I suppose that was because we were so excited that even Cornelia
couldn't go to sleep at once. I do wish you could have seen some of the
costumes, Mr. Ludlow!"
Ludlow began to wonder whether Cornelia had got his letter, or whether,
if she had got it, she had kept the matter so carefully from Charmian
that she had not suspected anything was wrong. Or, what was more
likely, had not Cornelia cared? Was she glad to be released, and had
she joyfully hailed his letter and its enclosure as a means of escape?
His brain reeled with these doubts, which were the next moment relieved
with the crazy hope that if his letter had not yet been delivered, he
might recover it, and present the affair in the shape he had now come
to give it. He believed that Charmian must have some motive for what
she was doing and saying beyond the hospitable purpose of amusing him
till Cornelia should appear. We always think that other people have
distinct motives, but for the most part in our intercourse with one
another we are really as superficially intentioned, when we are
intentioned at all, as Charmian was in wishing to get what sensation
she could out of the dramatic situation by hovering darkly over it, and
playing perilously about its circumference. She divined that he was not
there to deepen its tragical tendency at least, and she continued
without well knowing what she was going to say next: "Yes, I think that
the real reason why Cornelia wouldn't go in costume was that she felt
that it was a kind of subterfuge. She keeps me in a perfect twitter of
self-reproach. I tell her I would rather have the conscience of the
worst kind of person than hers; I could get along with it a great deal
easier. Don't you think you could, Mr. Ludlow?"
"Yes, yes," said Ludlow aimlessly. He rose up, and pretended a
curiosity about a sketch on the wall; he could not endure to sit still.
"Won't you have a cup of tea?" asked Charmian. "Cornelia and I had some
last night, and----"
"No, thank you," said Ludlow.
"Do let me ring for some coffee, then?"
"No, I have just breakfasted--that is, I have breakfasted----"
"Why, were _you_ up early, too?" said Charmian, with what seemed to
Ludlow a supernatural shrewdness. "It's perfectly telepathic! The
Psychical Research ought to have it. It would be such fun if we could
get together and compare our reasons for waking so early. But Cornelia
and I didn't know just when we did wake, and I suppose the Psychical
Research wouldn't care for it without. She seems to be writing a pretty
long note, or a pretty hard one!" Ludlow lifted his downcast eyes, and
gave her a look that was ghastly. "Did you look at your watch?" she
asked.
"Look at my watch?" he returned in a daze.
"When you woke, that is."
"Oh!" he groaned.
"Because----"
Charmian suddenly stopped and ran to the door, which Cornelia opened
before she could reach it.
Cornelia gave her a letter. "See if this will do," she said
spiritlessly, and Charmian caught it from her hand.
"Yes, yes, I'll read it," she said, as she slipped out of the door and
shut Cornelia in.
Cornelia saw Ludlow, and made an instinctive movement of flight.
"For pity's sake, don't go!" he implored.
"I didn't know you were here," she said, the same dejection in her
tone.
"No, they told me you were here; but let me stay long enough to tell
you---- That abominable letter--you ought never to have known that it
existed. I don't expect you to forgive me; I don't ask you; but I am so
ashamed; and I would do anything if I could recall--undo--Cornelia!
_Isn't_ there any way of atoning for it? Come! I don't believe a word
of that scoundrel's. I don't know what his motive was, and I don't
care. Let it all be as if nothing of the kind had ever happened.
Dearest, don't speak of it, and I never will!"
Cornelia was tempted. She could see how he had wrought himself up to
this pitch, and she believed that he would keep his word; we believe
such miracles of those we love, before life has taught us that love
cannot make nature err against itself. In his absence the duty she had
to do was hard; in his presence it seemed impossible, now when he asked
her not to do it. She had not expected ever to see him again, or to be
tried in this way. She had just written it all to him, but she must
speak it now. She had been weak, and had brought on herself the worst
she had to tell, and should she be false, even though he wished it, and
not tell?
She forced the words out in a voice that hardly seemed her own at
first.
"No, we made a mistake; you did, and I did, too. There was
something--something--I wanted to tell you at first, but you wouldn't
let me, and I was glad you wouldn't; but it was all wrong, and now I
have got to tell you, when everything is over, and it can never do any
good." She gave a dry sob, and cast upon him a look of keen reproach,
which he knew he deserved. "I _was_ engaged to him once. Or," she
added, as if she could not bear to see him blench, "he could think so.
It was the year after you were in Pymantoning."
She went on and told him everything. She did not spare herself any fact
that she thought he ought to know, and as she detailed the squalid
history, it seemed to her far worse than it had ever been in her own
thoughts of it.