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 thought I was dead? You thought you were rid of me? Not so long as you live, Col. Selby, not so long as you live,” Laura in her passion was hurried on to say.
No man had ever accused Col. Selby of cowardice. But he was a coward before this woman. May be he was not the man he once was. Where was his coolness? Where was his sneering, imperturbable manner, with which he could have met, and would have met, any woman he had wronged, if he had only been forewarned. He felt now that he must temporize, that he must gain time. There was danger in Laura’s tone. There was something frightful in her calmness. Her steady eyes seemed to devour him.
“You have ruined my life,” she said; “and I was so young, so ignorant, and loved you so. You betrayed me, and left me, mocking me and trampling me into the dust, a soiled cast-off. You might better have killed me then. Then I should not have hated you.”
“Laura,” said the Colonel, nerving himself, but still pale, and speaking appealingly, “don’t say that. Reproach me. I deserve it. I was a scoundrel. I was everything monstrous. But your beauty made me crazy. You are right. I was a brute in leaving you as I did. But what could I do? I was married, and — ”
“And your wife still lives?” asked Laura, bending a little forward in her eagerness.
The Colonel noticed the action, and he almost said “no,” but he thought of the folly of attempting concealment.
“Yes. She is here.”
What little color had wandered back into Laura’s face forsook it again. Her heart stood still, her strength seemed going from her limbs. Her last hope was gone. The room swam before her for a moment, and the Colonel stepped towards her, but she waved him back, as hot anger again coursed through her veins, and said,
“And you dare come with her, here, and tell me of it, here and mock me with it! And you think I will have it; George? You think I will let you live with that woman? You think I am as powerless as that day I fell dead at your feet?”
She raged now. She was in a tempest of excitement. And she advanced towards him with a threatening mien. She would kill me if she could, thought the Colonel; but he thought at the same moment, how beautiful she is. He had recovered his head now. She was lovely when he knew her, then a simple country girl. Now she was dazzling, in the fullness of ripe womanhood, a superb creature, with all the fascination that a woman of the world has for such a man as Col. Selby. Nothing of this was lost on him. He stepped quickly to her, grasped both her hands in his, and said,
“Laura, stop! think! Suppose I loved you yet! Suppose I hated my fate! What can I do? I am broken by the war. I have lost everything almost. I had as lief be dead and done with it.”
The Colonel spoke with a low remembered voice that thrilled through Laura. He was looking into her eyes as he had looked in those old days, when no birds of all those that sang in the groves where they walked sang a note of warning. He was wounded. He had been punished. Her strength forsook her with her rage, and she sank upon a chair, sobbing,
“Oh! my God, I thought I hated him!”
The Colonel knelt beside her. He took her hand and she let him keep it. She looked down