with the heat. Don’t mention it. Don’t you speak of it,” she added earnestly, grasping his arm.
When she had gained her room she went to the glass and saw a pallid and haggard face.
“My God,” she cried, “this will never do. I should have killed him, if I could. The scoundrel still lives, and dares to come here. I ought to kill him. He has no right to live. How I hate him. And yet I loved him. Oh heavens, how I did love that man. And why didn’t he kill me? He might better. He did kill all that was good in me. Oh, but he shall not escape. He shall not escape this time. He may have forgotten. He will find that a woman’s hate doesn’t forget. The law? What would the law do but protect him and make me an outcast? How all Washington would gather up its virtuous skirts and avoid me, if it knew. I wonder if he hates me as I do him?”
So Laura raved, in tears and in rage by turns, tossed in a tumult of passion, which she gave way to with little effort to control.
A servant came to summon her to dinner. She had a headache. The hour came for the President’s reception. She had a raving headache, and the Senator must go without her.
That night of agony was like another night she recalled. How vividly it all came back to her. And at that time she remembered she thought she might be mistaken. He might come back to her. Perhaps he loved her, a little, after all. Now, she knew he did not. Now, she knew he was a cold-blooded scoundrel, without pity. Never a word in all these years. She had hoped he was dead. Did his wife live, she wondered. She caught at that — and it gave a new current to her thoughts. Perhaps, after all — she must see him. She could not live without seeing him. Would he smile as in the old days when she loved him so; or would he sneer as when she last saw him? If he looked so, she hated him. If he should call her “Laura, darling,” and look SO! She must find him. She must end her doubts.
Laura kept her room for two days, on one excuse and another — a nervous headache, a cold — to the great anxiety of the Senator’s household. Callers, who went away, said she had been too gay — they did not say “fast,” though some of them may have thought it. One so conspicuous and successful in society as Laura could not be out of the way two days, without remarks being made, and not all of them complimentary.
When she came down she appeared as usual, a little pale may be, but unchanged in manner. If there were any deepened lines about the eyes they had been concealed. Her course of action was quite determined.
At breakfast she asked if any one had heard any unusual noise during the night? Nobody had. Washington never heard any noise of any kind after his eyes were shut. Some people thought he never did when they were open either.
Senator Dilworthy said he had come in late. He was detained in a little consultation after the Congressional prayer meeting. Perhaps it was his entrance.
No, Laura said. She heard that. It was later. She might have been nervous, but she fancied somebody was trying to get into the house.
Mr. Brierly humorously suggested that it might be, as none of the members were occupied in night session.
The Senator frowned, and said he did not like to hear that kind of newspaper slang. There might be burglars about.
Laura said that very likely it was only her nervousness. But she thought she would feel safer if Washington would let her take one of his pistols. Washington brought her one of his revolvers, and instructed her in the art of loading and firing it.
During the morning Laura drove down to Mrs. Schoonmaker’s to pay a friendly call.
“Your receptions are always delightful,” she said to that lady, “the pleasant people all seem to come here.”
“It’s pleasant to hear you say so, Miss Hawkins. I believe my friends like to come here. Though society in Washington is mixed; we have a little of everything.”
“I suppose, though, you don’t see much of the old rebel element?” said Laura with a smile.
If this seemed to Mrs. Schoonmaker a singular remark for a lady to make, who was meeting “rebels” in society every day, she did not express it in any way, but only said,
“You know we don’t say ‘rebel’ anymore. Before we came to Washington I thought rebels would look unlike other people. I find we are very much alike, and that kindness and good nature wear away prejudice. And then you know there are all sorts of common interests. My husband sometimes says that he doesn’t see but confederates are just as eager to get at the treasury as Unionists. You know that Mr. Schoonmaker is on the appropriations.”
“Does he know many Southerners?”
“Oh, yes. There were several at my reception the other day. Among others a confederate Colonel — a stranger — handsome man with gray hair, probably you didn’t notice him, uses a cane in walking. A very agreeable man. I wondered why he called. When my husband came home and looked over the cards, he said he had a cotton claim. A real southerner. Perhaps you might know him if I could think of his name. Yes, here’s his card — Louisiana.”
Laura took the card, looked at it intently till she was sure of the address, and then laid it down, with,
“No, he is no friend of ours.”
That afternoon, Laura wrote and dispatched the following note. It was in a round hand, unlike her flowing style, and it was directed to a number and street in Georgetown: —
“A Lady at Senator Dilworthy’s would like to see Col. George Selby, on business connected with the Cotton Claims. Can he call Wednesday at three o’clock P. M.?”
On Wednesday at 3 P. M, no one of the family was likely to be in the house except Laura.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Col. Selby had just come to Washington, and taken lodgings in Georgetown. His business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war. There were many others in Washington on the same errand, some of them with claims as difficult to establish as his. A concert of action was necessary, and he was not, therefore, at all surprised to receive the note from a lady asking him to call at Senator Dilworthy’s.
At a little after three on Wednesday he rang the bell of the Senator’s residence. It was a handsome mansion on the Square opposite the President’s house. The owner must be a man of great wealth, the Colonel thought; perhaps, who knows, said he with a smile, he may have got some of my cotton in exchange for salt and quinine after the capture of New Orleans. As this thought passed through his mind he was looking at the remarkable figure of the Hero of New Orleans, holding itself by main strength from sliding off the back of the rearing bronze horse, and lifting its hat in the manner of one who acknowledges the playing of that martial air: “See, the Conquering Hero Comes!” “Gad,” said the Colonel to himself, “Old Hickory ought to get down and give his seat to Gen. Sutler — but they’d have to tie him on.”
Laura was in the drawing room. She heard the bell, she heard the steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane. She had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart. The door opened and the Colonel entered, standing in the full light of the opposite window. Laura was more in the shadow and stood for an instant, long enough for the Colonel to make the inward observation that she was a magnificent Woman. She then advanced a step.
“Col. Selby, is it not?”
The Colonel staggered back, caught himself by a chair, and turned towards her a look of terror.
“Laura? My God!”
“Yes, your wife!”
“Oh, no, it can’t be. How came you here? I thought you were — ”
“You