ere 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 st