was then, for one hour–and hold my father’s hand in mine again, and see
all the household about me, as in that old innocent time–and then die!
My God, I am humbled, my pride is all gone, my stubborn heart repents–
have pity!”
When the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there, the elbows
resting upon the table and the face upon the hands. All day long the
figure sat there, the sunshine enriching its costly raiment and flashing
from its jewels; twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the
figure remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the picture
with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded, it with mellow light; by
and by the darkness swallowed it up, and later the gray dawn revealed it
again; the new day grew toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence
was undisturbed.
But now the keepers of the house had become uneasy; their periodical
knockings still finding no response, they burst open the door.
The jury of inquest found that death had resulted from heart disease, and
was instant and painless. That was all. Merely heart disease.
CHAPTER LXI.
Clay Hawkins, years gone by, had yielded, after many a struggle, to the
migratory and speculative instinct of our age and our people, and had
wandered further and further westward upon trading ventures. Settling
finally in Melbourne, Australia, he ceased to roam, became a steady-going
substantial merchant, and prospered greatly. His life lay beyond the
theatre of this tale.
His remittances had supported the Hawkins family, entirely, from the time
of his father’s death until latterly when Laura by her efforts in
Washington had been able to assist in this work. Clay was away on a long
absence in some of the eastward islands when Laura’s troubles began,
trying (and almost in vain,) to arrange certain interests which had
become disordered through a dishonest agent, and consequently he knew
nothing of the murder till he returned and read his letters and papers.
His natural impulse was to hurry to the States and save his sister if
possible, for he loved her with a deep and abiding affection. His
business was so crippled now, and so deranged, that to leave it would be
ruin ; therefore he sold out at a sacrifice that left him considerably
reduced in worldly possessions, and began his voyage to San Francisco.
Arrived there, he perceived by the newspapers that the trial was near its
close. At Salt Lake later telegrams told him of the acquittal, and his
gratitude was boundless–so boundless, indeed, that sleep was driven from
his eyes by the pleasurable excitement almost as effectually as preceding
weeks of anxiety had done it. He shaped his course straight for Hawkeye,
now, and his meeting with his mother and the rest of the household was
joyful–albeit he had been away so long that he seemed almost a stranger
in his own home.
But the greetings and congratulations were hardly finished when all the
journals in the land clamored the news of Laura’s miserable death.
Mrs. Hawkins was prostrated by this last blow, and it was well that Clay
was at her side to stay her with comforting words and take upon himself
the ordering of the household with its burden of labors and cares.
Washington Hawkins had scarcely more than entered upon that decade which
carries one to the full blossom of manhood which we term the beginning:
of middle age, and yet a brief sojourn at the capital of the nation had
made him old. His hair was already turning gray when the late session of
Congress began its sittings; it grew grayer still, and rapidly, after the
memorable day that saw Laura proclaimed a murderess; it waxed grayer and
still grayer during the lagging suspense that succeeded it and after the
crash which ruined his last hope–the failure of his bill in the Senate
and the destruction of its champion, Dilworthy. A few days later, when
he stood uncovered while the last prayer was pronounced over Laura’s
grave, his hair was whiter and his face hardly less old than the
venerable minister’s whose words were sounding in his ears.
A week after this, be was sitting in a double-bedded room in a cheap