The bold sunshine smote my face, and the insolent wind played about me. The whole earth was as brilliant and joyous as if it had never been furrowed by graves.
Laura lived some days after my interview with her. She sent me no message, and I did not go to see her. From the garret-windows of our house, which was half a mile distant from Laura's, I could see the windows of the room where she was lying. Three tall poplar-trees intervened in the landscape. I thought they stood motionless so that they might not intercept my view while I watched the house of death. One morning I saw that the blinds had been thrown back and the windows opened. I knew then that Laura was dead.
The day after the funeral I gave Frank his letters, his miniature, and the locket which held a ring of his hair.
"Is there a fire?" he asked, when I gave them to him; "I want to burn these things."
I went to another room with him.
"I'll leave everything here to-day; and may I never see this cursed place again! Did she die, do you know, because I held her promise that she would be my wife?"
He threw the papers into the grate, and crowded them down with his boot, and watched them till the last blackened flake disappeared. He then took from his neck a hair chain, and threw that into the fire also.
"It is all done now," he said.
He shook my hand with a firm grasp and left me.
A month later Laura's mother sent me a package containing two bundles of letters. It startled me to see that the direction was dated before she was taken ill:—"To be given to Margaret in case of my death. June 5th, 1848." They were my letters, and those which she had received from Harry Lothrop. On this envelop was written, "Put these into the black box he gave you." The gold pen-holder came into my hands also. Departure was engraved on the handle, and Laura's initials were cut in an emerald in its top. The black box was an ebony, gold-plated toy, which Harry Lothrop had given me at the same time Redmond gave Laura the pen-holder. It was when they went away, after a whole summer's visit in our little town, the year before. I locked the letters in the black box, and,
"Whether from reason or from impulse only,"
I know not, but I was prompted to write a line to Harry Lothrop. "Do not," I said, "write Laura any more letters. Those you have already written to her are in my keeping, for she is dead. Was it not a pleasant summer we passed together? The second autumn is already at hand: time flies the same, whether we are dull or gay. For all this period what remains except the poor harvest of a few letters?"
I received in answer an incoherent and agitated letter. What was the matter with Laura? he asked. He had not heard from her for months. Had any rupture occurred between her and her friend Frank? Did I suppose she was ever unhappy? He was shocked at the news, and said he must come and learn the particulars of the event. He thanked me for my note, and begged me to believe how sincere was his friendship for my poor friend.
"Redmond," he continued, "is, for the present, attached to the engineer corps to which I belong, and he has offered to take charge of my business while I am a day or two absent. He is in my room at this moment, holding your note in his hand, and appears painfully disturbed."
It was now a little past the time of year when Redmond and Harry Lothrop had left us,—early autumn. After their departure, Laura and I had been sentimental enough to talk over the events of their visit. Recalling these associations, we created an illusion of pleasure which of course could not last. Harry Lothrop wrote to Laura, but the correspondence declined and died. As time passed on, we talked less and less of our visitors, and finally ceased to speak of them. Neither of us knew or suspected the other of any deep or lasting feeling toward the two friends. Laura knew Redmond better than I did; at least, she saw him oftener; in fact, she knew both in a different way. They had visited her alone; while I had met them almost entirely in society. I never found so much time to spare as she seemed to have; for everybody liked her, and everybody sought her. As often as we had talked over our acquaintance, she was wary of speaking of Redmond. Her last conversation with me revealed her thoughts, and awakened feelings which I thought I had buffeted down. The tone of Harry Lothrop's note perplexed me, and I found myself drifting back into an old state of mind I had reason to dread.
As I said, the autumn had come round. Its quiet days, its sombre nights, filled my soul with melancholy. The lonesome moan of the sea and the waiting stillness of the woods were just the same a year ago; but Laura was dead, and Nature grieved me. Yet none of us are in one mood long, and at this very time there were intervals when I found something delicious in life, either in myself or the atmosphere.
"Moreover, something is or seems
That touches me with mystic gleams."
A golden morning, a starry night, the azure round of the sky, the undulating horizon of sea, the blue haze which rose and fell over the distant hills, the freshness of youth, the power of beauty,—all gave me deep voluptuous dreams.
I can afford to confess that I possessed beauty; for half my faults and miseries arose from the fact of my being beautiful. I was not vain, but as conscious of my beauty as I was of that of a flower, and sometimes it intoxicated me. For, in spite of the comforting novels of the Jane Eyre school, it is hardly possible to set an undue value upon beauty; it defies ennui.
As I expected, Harry Lothrop came to see me. The sad remembrance of Laura's death prevented any ceremony between us; we met as old acquaintances, of course, although we had never conversed together half an hour without interruption. I began with the theme of Laura's illness and death, and the relation which she had held toward me. All at once I discovered, without evidence, that he was indifferent to what I was saying; but I talked on mechanically, and like a phantasm the truth came to my mind. The real man was there,—not the one I had carelessly looked at and known through Laura.
I became silent.
He twisted his fingers in the fringe of my scarf, which had fallen off, and I watched them.
"Why," I abruptly asked, "have I not known you before?"
He let go the fringe, and folded his hands, and in a dreamy voice replied,—
"Redmond admires you."
"What a pity!" I said. "And you,—you admire me, or yourself, just now; which?"
He flushed slightly, but continued with a bland voice, which irritated and interested me.
"All that time I was so near you, and you scarcely saw me; what a chance I had to study you! Your friend was intelligent and sympathetic, so we struck a league of friendship: I could dare so much with her, because I knew that she was engaged to marry Mr. Ballard. I own that I have been troubled about her since I went away. How odd it is that I am here alone with you in this room! how many times I have wished it! I liked you best here; and while absent, the remembrance of it has been inseparable from the remembrance of you,—a picture within a picture. I know all that the room contains,—the white vases, and the wire baskets, with pots of Egyptian lilies and damask roses, the books bound in green and gold, the engravings of nymphs and fauns, the crimson bars in the carpet, the flowers on the cushions, and, best of all, the arched window and its low seat. But I had promised myself never to see you: it was all I could do for Laura. She is dead, and I am here."
I rose and walked to the window, and looked out on the misty sea, and felt strangely.
"Another lover," I thought,—"and Redmond's friend, and Laura's. But it all belongs to the comedy we play."
He came to where I stood.
"I know you so well," he said,—"your pride, your self-control, even
