The Coast of Bohemia by William Dean Howells

The false courage that supported her in Dickerson's presence left Cornelia when she went back to her room, and she did not sleep that night, or she thought she did not. She came down early for a cup of coffee, and the landlady told her that Mr. Dickerson had just gone; he wished Mrs. Montgomery to give Cornelia his respects, and apologize for his going away without waiting to see her again. He had really expected to stay over till Monday, but he found he could save several days by taking the Chicago Limited that morning. Mrs. Montgomery praised his energy; she did not believe he would be on the road a great while longer; he would be in the firm in less than another year. She hinted at his past unhappiness in the married state, and she said she did hope that he would get somebody who would appreciate him, next time. There did not seem to be any doubt in her mind that there would be a next time with him.

Cornelia wanted to ask whether she expected him back soon; she could not; but she resolved that whenever he came he should not find her in that house. She thought where she should go, and what excuse she should make for going, what she should tell Charmian, or Mr. Ludlow, if she ever saw him again. It seemed to her that she had better go home, but Cornelia hated to give up; she could not bear to be driven away. She went to church, to escape herself, and a turmoil of things alien to the place and the hour whirled through her mind during the service; she came out spent with a thousand-fold dramatization of her relations to Mr. Dickerson and to Mr. Ludlow. She sat down on a bench in the little park before the church, and tried to think what she ought to do, while the children ran up and down the walks, and the people from the neighboring East Side avenues, in their poor Sunday best, swarmed in the square for the mild sun and air of the late October. The street cars dinned ceaselessly up and down, and back and forth; the trains of the Elevated hurtled by on the west and on the east; the troubled city roared all round with the anguish of the perpetual coming and going; but it was as much Sunday there as it would have been on the back street in Pymantoning where her mother's little house stood. The leaves that dripped down at her feet in the light warm breaths of wind passing over the square might have fallen from the maple before the gate at home.