University of Virginia Library

60. CHAPTER LX.

FOR some days Laura had been a free woman once more.
During this time, she had experienced—first, two or
three days of triumph, excitement, congratulations, a sort of
sunburst of gladness, after a long night of gloom and anxiety;
then two or three days of calming down, by degrees—a receding
of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous
surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that
bore the spirit of a truce—days given to solitude, rest, self-communion,
and the reasoning of herself into a realization of
the fact that she was actually done with bolts and bars, prison
horrors and impending death; then came a day whose hours
filed slowly by her, each laden with some remnant, some
remaining fragment of the dreadful time so lately ended—a
day which, closing at last, left the past a fading shore behind
her and turned her eyes toward the broad sea of the future.
So speedily do we put the dead away and come back to our
place in the ranks to march in the pilgrimage of life again!

And now the sun rose once more and ushered in the first
day of what Laura comprehended and accepted as a new life.

The past had sunk below the horizon, and existed no more
for her; she was done with it for all time. She was gazing
out over the trackless expanses of the future, now, with
troubled eyes. Life must be begun again—at eight and
twenty years of age. And where to begin? The page was
blank, and waiting for its first record; so this was indeed a
momentous day.

Her thoughts drifted back, stage by stage, over her career.
As far as the long highway receded over the plain of her life,
it was lined with the gilded and pillared splendors of her
ambition all crumbled to ruin and ivy-grown; every milestone
marked a disaster; there was no green spot remaining
anywhere in memory of a hope that had found its fruition;
the unresponsive earth had uttered no voice of flowers in testimony
that one who was blest had gone that road.

Her life had been a failure. That was plain, she said. No
more of that. She would now look the future in the face;
she would mark her course upon the chart of life, and follow
it; follow it without swerving, through rocks and shoals,
through storm and calm, to a haven of rest and peace—or,
shipwreck. Let the end be what it might, she would mark
her course now—to-day—and follow it.

On her table lay six or seven notes. They were from lovers;
from some of the prominent names in the land; men
whose devotion had survived even the grisly revealments of
her character which the courts had uncurtained; men who
knew her now, just as she was, and yet pleaded as for their
lives for the dear privilege of calling the murderess wife.

As she read these passionate, these worshiping, these supplicating
missives, the woman in her nature confessed itself;
a strong yearning came upon her to lay her head upon a
loyal breast and find rest from the conflict of life, solace for
her griefs, the healing of love for her bruised heart.

With her forehead resting upon her hand, she sat thinking,
thinking, while the unheeded moments winged their flight.
It was one of those mornings in early spring when nature
seems just stirring to a half consciousness out of a long,

exhausting lethargy; when the first faint balmy airs go wandering
about, whispering the secret of the coming change;
when the abused brown grass, newly relieved of snow, seems
considering whether it can be worth the trouble and worry
of contriving its green raiment again only to fight the inevitable
fight with the implacable winter and be vanquished and
buried once more; when the sun shines out and a few birds
venture forth and lift up a forgotten song; when a strange
stillness and suspense pervades the waiting air. It is a time
when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why;
when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity
and a burden, and the future but a way to death. It is a
time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams
of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea,
or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling,
and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up.

It was into such a mood as this that Laura had drifted
from the musings which the letters of her lovers had called

up. Now she lifted her head and noted with surprise how
the day had wasted. She thrust the letters aside, rose up
and went and stood at the window. But she was soon thinking
again, and was only gazing into vacancy.

By and by she turned; her countenance had cleared; the
dreamy look was gone out of her face, all indecision had vanished;
the poise of her head and the firm set of her lips told
that her resolution was formed. She moved toward the table
with all the old dignity in her carriage, and all the old pride
in her mien. She took up each letter in its turn, touched a
match to it and watched it slowly consume to ashes. Then
she said:

“I have landed upon a foreign shore, and burned my ships
behind me. These letters were the last thing that held me
in sympathy with any remnant or belonging of the old life.
Henceforth that life and all the appertains to it are as dead
to me and as far removed from me as if I were become a denizen
of another world.”

She said that love was not for her—the time that it could
have satisfied her heart was gone by and could not return;
the opportunity was lost, nothing could restore it. She said
there could be no love without respect, and she would only
despise a man who could content himself with a thing like
her. Love, she said, was a woman's first necessity: love being
forfeited, there was but one thing left that could give a passing
zest to a wasted life, and that was fame, admiration, the
applause of the multitude.

And so her resolution was taken. She would turn to that
final resort of the disappointed of her sex, the lecture platform.
She would array herself in fine attire, she would adorn herself
with jewels, and stand in her isolated magnificence
before massed audiences and enchant them with her eloquence
and amaze them with her unapproachable beauty. She
would move from city to city like a queen of romance, leaving
marveling multitudes behind her and impatient multitudes
awaiting her coming. Her life, during one hour of
each day, upon the platform, would be a rapturous intoxication—and
when the curtain fell, and the lights were out, and
the people gone, to nestle in their homes and forget her, she
would find in sleep oblivion of her homelessness, if she
could, if not she would brave out the night in solitude and
wait for the next day's hour of ecstasy.

So, to take up life and begin again was no great evil. She
saw her way. She would be brave and strong; she would
make the best of what was left for her among the possibilities.

She sent for the lecture agent, and matters were soon
arranged.

Straightway all the papers were filled with her name, and
all the dead walls flamed with it. The papers called down
imprecations upon her head; they reviled her without stint;
they wondered if all sense of decency was dead in this shameless
murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this heartless seducer of
the affections of weak and misguided men; they implored
the people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless

daughters, for the sake of decency, for the sake of public
morals, to give this wretched creature such a rebuke as should
be an all-sufficient evidence to her and to such as her, that
there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul acts and opinions
before the world must stop; certain of them, with a
higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture,
uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking
enlogy and ironical admiration. Everybody talked
about the new wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed
discourse, and marveled how she would handle it.

Laura's few friends wrote to her or came and talked with her,
and pleaded with her to retire while it was yet time, and not
attempt to face the gathering storm. But it was fruitles.
She was stung to the quick by the comments of the newspapers;
her spirit was roused, her ambition was towering, now.
She was more determined than ever. She would show these
people what a hunted and persecuted woman could do.

The eventful night came. Laura arrived before the great
lecture hall in a close carriage within five minutes of the
time set for the lecture to begin. When she stepped out of
the vehicle her heart beat fast and her eyes flashed with
exultation: the whole street was packed with people, and she
could hardly force her way to the hall! She reached the
ante-room, threw off her wraps and placed herself before the
dressing-glass. She turned herself this way and that—everything
was satisfactory, her attire was perfect. She smoothed
her hair, re-arranged a jewel here and there, and all the while
her heart sang within her, and her face was radiant. She had
not been so happy for ages and ages, it seemed to her. Oh,
no, she had never been so overwhelmingly grateful and
happy in her whole life before. The lecture agent appeared
at the door. She waved him away and said:

“Do not disturb me. I want no introduction. And do
not fear for me; the moment the hands point to eight I will
step upon the platform.”

He disappeared. She held her watch before her. She was
so impatient that the second-hand seemed whole tedious

minutes dragging its way around the circle. At last the supreme
moment came, and with head erect and the bearing of an
empress she swept through the door and stood upon the stage.
Her eyes fell upon—

Only a vast, brilliant emptiness—there were not forty
people in the house! There were only a handful of coarse
men and ten or twelve still coarser women, lolling upon the
benches and scattered about singly and in couples.

Her pulses stood still, her limbs quaked, the gladness went
out of her face. There was a moment of silence, and then a
brutal laugh and an explosion of cat-calls and hisses saluted
her from the audience. The clamor grew stronger and
louder, and insulting speeches were shouted at her. A half-intoxicated
man rose up and threw something, which missed
her but bespattered a chair at her side, and this evoked an
outburst of laughter and boisterous admiration. She was
bewildered, her strength was forsaking her. She reeled away
from the platform, reached the ante-room, and dropped helpless

upon a sofa. The lecture agent ran in, with a hurried
question upon his lips; but she put forth her hands, and with
the tears raining from her eyes, said:

“Oh, do not speak! Take me away—please take me away,
out of this dreadful place! Oh, this is like all my life—
failure, disappointment, misery—always misery, always failure.
What have I done, to be so pursued! Take me away,
I beg of you, I implore you!”

Upon the pavement she was hustled by the mob, the surging
masses roared her name and accompanied it with every
species of insulting epithet; they thronged after the carriage,
hooting, jeering, cursing, and even assailing the vehicle with
missiles. A stone crushed through a blind, wounding Laura's
forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what
further transpired during her flight.

It was long before her faculties were wholly restored, and
then she found herself lying on the floor by a sofa in her
own sitting-room, and alone. So she supposed she must have
sat down upon the sofa and afterward fallen. She raised herself
up, with difficulty, for the air was chilly and her limbs
were stiff. She turned up the gas and sought the glass. She
hardly knew herself, so worn and old she looked, and so
marred with blood were her features. The night was far
spent, and a dead stillness reigned. She sat down by her
table, leaned her elbows upon it and put her face in her
hands.

Her thoughts wandered back over her old life again and
her tears flowed unrestrained.—Her pride was humbled, her
spirit was broken. Her memory found but one resting place;
it lingered about her young girlhood with a caressing regret;
it dwelt upon it as the one brief interval in her life that
bore no curse. She saw herself again in the budding grace
of her twelve years, decked in her dainty pride of ribbons,
consorting with the bees and the butterflies, believing in
fairies, holding confidential converse with the flowers, busying
herself all day long with airy trifles that were as weighty

to her as the affairs that tax the brains of diplomats and
emperors. She was without sin, then, and unacquainted with
grief; the world was full of sunshine and her heart was full
of music. From that—to this!

“If I could only die!” she said. “If I could only go
back, and be as I was then, for one hour—and hold my
father's hand in mine again, and see all the household about
me, as in that old innocent time—and then die! My God,
I am humbled, my pride is all gone, my stubborn heart
repents—have pity!”

When the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there,
the elbows resting upon the table and the face upon the
hands. All day long the figure sat there, the sunshine
enriching its costly raiment and flashing from its jewels;
twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the figure
remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the
picture with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded it
with mellow light; by and by the darkness swallowed it up,
and later the gray dawn revealed it again; the new day grew
toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence was undisturbed.

But now the keepers of the house had become uneasy;
their periodical knockings still finding no response, they
burst open the door.

The jury of inquest found that death had resulted from
heart disease, and was instant and painless. That was all.
Merely heart disease.