“Well, go where you like. Perhaps,” continued he with a sneer, “you would do as well to wait here, for another colonel.”
Laura's brain whirled. She did not yet comprehend. “What does this mean? Where are you going?”
“It means,” said the officer, in measured words, “that you haven't anything to show for a legal marriage, and that I am going to New Orleans.”
“It's a lie, George, it's a lie. I am your wife. I shall go. I shall follow you to New Orleans.”
Laura raised her head, her eyes flamed with fire, she tried to utter a cry, and fell senseless on the floor.
When she came to herself the Colonel was gone. Washington Hawkins stood at her bedside. Did she come to herself? Was there anything left in her heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands of the only man she had ever loved?
She returned to Hawkeye. With the exception of Washington and his mother, no one knew what had happened. The neighbors supposed that the engagement with Col. Selby had fallen through. Laura was ill for a long time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could conquer death almost. And with her health came back her beauty, and an added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness. Is there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in the face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible experience? Is the pathos in the eyes of the Beatrice Cenci from her guilt or her innocence?
Laura was not much changed. The lovely woman had a devil in her heart. That was all.
CHAPTER XIX Harry Brierly Infatuated With Laura and Proposes She Visit Washington
CHAPTER XX Senator Abner Dilwortliy Visits Hawkeye--Addresses the People and Makes the Acquaintance of Laura 186
CHAPTER XXI Ruth Bolton at Fallkill Seminary--The Montagues--Ruth Becomes Quite Gay--Alice Montague
CHAPTER XXII Philip and Harry Visit Fallkill--Harry Does the Agreeable to Ruth
CHAPTER XXIII Harry at Washington Lobbying For An Appropriation For Stone's Landing --Philip in New York Studying Engineering
CHAPTER XXIV Washington and Its Sights--The Appropriation Bill Reported From the Committee and Passed
CHAPTER XXV Energetic Movements at Stone's Landing--Everything Booming--A Grand Smash Up