Chapter XX: Waiting and Watching

All night long, Laura lay upon her bed, counting the hours with feverish impatience, gazing drearily out upon the moonlight, and weeping, at times, till the curtains overhead trembled with the violence of her sobs. All the pretty wiles, that had seemed but a harmless means of securing Arnold’s love, now rose before her tortured imagination as coarse and unwomanly artifice, which had only repulsed him. Her beauty, of which she had been so proud, was, in that hour of humiliation, a source of annoyance. What was it worth, if the only heart she cared to own in the wide world turned from that beauty with indifference. Nay, was she indeed beautiful? Not in the style which he had been taught to admire,—not like the fair blonde who had rescued her from death. Compared to her that creamy complexion, and hair as black and brighter than the neck of a raven, was, in her strained imagination, overrich to coarseness. And her eyes, so large and bright—how could any man admire them who had once looked on the soft, violet orbs of Amy Leonard? Yes; that was beauty. What right had she to expect homage to charms so unlike and even so inferior?

Thus the proud girl—proud in the excess of her humility—spent the long, harassing night. The moonbeams of the evening made her weep and turn away from their brightness. The storm, which broke and dashed over the town towards morning, appealed more directly to her passionate sorrow. When she heard the first howl of the tempest, her courage rose, and she was filled with a bitter wish to go out and battle with it. The fever in her blood was so hot, the thirst for action so pressing, that she could endure the quiet of her bed no longer.

Laura threw back the curtains and stepped forth into the darkness. Her dress had been loosened, but not taken off, and the tap of her high-heeled shoes was lost in the beating of the rain as she walked up and down the chamber, angry now, and flushed with resentment for the wrong that had fallen on her,—that wrong which no law can reach, and of which a haughty woman dies, calling it by any name the doctors in their wisdom may choose.

The chamber was large, but in her fever the air seemed close and insufficient. She flung open the sash, gasping for breath. In rushed the wind, dashing coldly over her face and bosom. She received it with a sense of relief. Her hot cheeks grew cooler as the rain beat against them. Her excitement rose with keen sympathy, and met the storm half-way. What did she care that the rich braids that crowned her head were getting heavy with moisture, or that the knots of ribbon, that had fluttered so gayly on her dress a few hours before, were dangling like wilted flowers on the wet silk of her skirt? The storm in her soul was replied to by the storm without. She felt like a wild bird drifting madly with the tempest,—a poor white gull, that had been lured far, far out to sea, and must now brave the elements alone.

The old elm-tree seemed maddened like herself: its branches raved and tossed themselves up and down, to and fro, playing with the lightning, and flinging great masses of leaves upon the wind as it rushed by. To Laura the old tree seemed human, and suffering with pain as she was.

How bravely the forest monarch bore itself! With what lofty grandeur it shook off the lightning and the rain! How fiercely its branches thrashed the roof and knocked against the verandahs, scattering torn leaves upon the floor, where the rain beat them down, as the world deals with fallen humanity.

The creaking of the sign on its rusty hinges struck her like a cry of anguish,—the very cry that she in her pride was strangling in the depths of her bosom.

The window where Laura stood opened on the upper verandah, which was now a blaze of lightning, now enveloped with darkness. The casement was broad and deep; she flung the sash wide open and sprang out on the wet floor. Here was room to breathe,—here the wind raved and rioted as pride and sorrow battled in her own soul.

She walked up and down the long gallery, sobbing faint echoes to the deeper sough of the storm. Sometimes low cries broke from her lips,—those cries which she had stifled in her room from fear of being heard. But as these expressions of grief left her heart the wind tossed them out into the storm, shouting over them as coarse humanity might have done had it been able to seize upon her sorrow and drag it into the public knowledge.

Laura thought of this, and triumphed over her powers of concealment. She would have no confidant but the storm; not even her brother should guess how her pride had been crushed, how her poor heart bled. As for Arnold, he must never know of her humiliation. She would meet him again on the morrow with a pride that should more than match his indifference. Yes; she would stay some weeks in the town, receiving graciously the homage of those admirers who had been so recklessly cast aside during her infatuation. He should see how men could adore her and be grateful for one of the smiles which he had not cared to gather. Certainly she would stay a few weeks, gather a harvest of admiration, and then go away. Go away! Where? and how?

The blank that followed this question fell like a pall on her heart. Without love where can a woman go and not find a desert? She ceased to walk as the desolating idea crept over her, and stood leaning against a pillar of the verandah, pale, drenched and hopeless. Body and soul she was chilled through and through.

“Laura!”

A cry died in her throat; her heavy eyes filled with wild brilliancy; for the lightning playing among the branches of the elm revealed Benedict Arnold. He stood directly before her, against the yawning space of an open window, through which he had just passed, having seen her standing there alone amidst the gleams of light.

“Laura, my beloved, why are you out in a night like this? You are tempting death.”

She looked at him with her wild eyes; her lips trembled apart, but she could not utter a word: speech seemed chained down in her bosom.

“What is the matter?” he said, more gently than she had ever heard him speak before. “I went to your parlor late in the evening and found it empty. The landlady told me you had gone to bed ill. The thought was enough to keep me awake; and the storm brought me to the window, where I saw you thus.”

Laura wound her arms around the pillar, for the thrill that ran through every fibre of her frame made her faint.

“And you sought me? You came to my room! You——”

“Yes, I went there,” he said, gently unwinding her arm from its clasp around the pillar, and drawing her suddenly into his embrace. “And this was what I was panting to say,—Laura, Laura de Montreuil, will you be my wife?”