rightly punished, and she was ready
to suffer, but she could not let him suffer the shame of thinking
himself wrong. That was mean, that was cowardly, and whatever she was,
Cornelia was not base, and not afraid. She would have been willing to
follow him into the night, to go to his door, and knock at it, and when
he came, flash out at him, "I did love you, I do love you," and then
run, she did not know where, but somewhere out of the world. But he
might not be there, or some one else might come to the door; the crude,
material difficulties denied her the fierce joy of this exploit, but
she could not rest (she should never really rest again) till she had
done the nearest thing to it that she could. She looked at the little
busy-bee clock ticking away on her bureau and saw that it was half-past
eleven o'clock, and that there was no time to lose, and she sat down
and wrote: "I did care for you. But I can never see you again. I cannot
tell you the reason."

She drew a deep breath when the thing was done, and hurried the scrap
unsigned into an envelope and addressed it to Ludlow. She was in a
frenzy till she could get it out of her hands and into the postal-box
beyond recall. She pulled a shawl over her head and flew down stairs
and out of the door into the street toward the postal-box on the
corner. But before she reached it she thought of a special-delivery
stamp, which should carry the letter to Ludlow the first thing in the
morning, and she pushed on to the druggist's at the corner beyond to
get it. She was aware of the man staring at her, as if she had asked
for arsenic; and she supposed she must have looked strange. This did
not come into her mind till she found herself again at Mrs.
Montgomery's door, where she stood in a panic ecstasy at having got rid
of the letter, which the special stamp seemed to make still more
irrevocable, and tried to fit her night-latch into the lock. The cat,
which had been shut out, crept up from the area, and rubbed with a soft
insinuation against her skirt. She gave a little shriek of terror, and
the door was suddenly pulled open from within.

She threw back her shawl from her head, and under the low-burning
gas-light held aloft by the spelter statuette in the newel post, she
confronted Mr. Dickerson. He had his hat on, and had the air of just
having let himself in; his gripsack stood at his feet.

"Why, Nelie! Miss Saunders! Is that you? Why, where in the world----
Well, this _is_ som