I should have killed him, if I
could. The scoundrel still lives, and dares to come here. I ought to
kill him. He has no right to live. How I hate him. And yet I loved
him. Oh heavens, how I did love that man. And why didn't he kill me?
He might better. He did kill all that was good in me. Oh, but he shall
not escape. He shall not escape this time. He may have forgotten. He
will find that a woman's hate doesn't forget. The law? What would the
law do but protect him and make me an outcast? How all Washington would
gather up its virtuous skirts and avoid me, if it knew. I wonder if he
hates me as I do him?"
So Laura raved, in tears and in rage by turns, tossed in a tumult of
passion, which she gave way to with little effort to control.
A servant came to summon her to dinner. She had a headache. The hour
came for the President's reception. She had a raving headache, and the
Senator must go without her.
That night of agony was like another night she recalled. How vividly it
all came back to her. And at that time she remembered she thought she
might be mistaken. He might come back to her. Perhaps he loved her,
a little, after all. Now, she knew he did not. Now, she knew he was a
cold-blooded scoundrel, without pity. Never a word in all these years.
She had hoped he was dead. Did his wife live, she wondered.
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