t--to put him out of your mind--your life."

To further this end Charmian talked of Ludlow for a long time, and
entered upon a close examination of his good and bad qualities; his
probable motives for now behaving as he was doing, and the influence of
the present tragedy upon his future as a painter. It would either
destroy him or it would be the fire out of which he would rise a
master; he would degenerate into a heartless worldling, which he might
very well do, for he was fond of society, or he might become a gloomy
recluse, and produce pictures which the multitude would never know were
painted with tears and blood. "Of course, I don't mean literally; the
idea is rather disgusting; but you know what I mean, Cornelia. He may
commit suicide, like that French painter, Robert; but he doesn't seem
one of that kind, exactly; he's much more likely to abandon art and
become an art-critic. Yes, it may make an art-critic of him."

Cornelia sat in a heavy muse, hearing and not hearing what she said.
Charmian bustled about, and made a fire of lightwood, and then kindled
her spirit lamp, and made tea, which she brought to Cornelia. "We may
as well take it," she said. "We shall not sleep to-night anyway. What a
strange ending to our happy evening. It's perfectly Hawthornesque.
Don't you think it's like the _Marble Faun_, somehow? I believe you
will rise to a higher life through this trouble, Cornelia, just as
Donatello did through his crime. I can arrange it with mamma to be with
you; and if I can't I shall just simply abandon her, and we will take a
little flat like two newspaper girls that I heard of, and live
together. We will get one down-town, on the East Side."

Cornelia look the tea and drank it, but she could not speak. It would
have been easier to bear if she had only had herself alone to blame,
but mixed with her shame, and with her pity for him, was a sense of his
want of wisdom in refusing to let her speak at once, when she wanted to
tell him all about Dickerson. That was her instinct; she had been
right, and he wrong; she might be to blame for everything since, but he
was to blame then and for that. Now it was all wrong, and past undoing.
She tried, in the reveries running along with what she was hearing of
Charmian's talk, every way of undoing it that she could imagine: she
wrote to Ludlow; she sent for him; she went to him; but it was all
impossible. She did not wish to undo the wrong that she might have back
her d