Taller in stature, fuller in figure, more fully developed in every way, and with a bearing, manner, and grace cultivated by those among whom she had moved, it required a certain effort to recognise in her the girlish Laura Dorillion of the past time. Though her whole style was different—finer and more statuesque—and the mode of her toilette and of dressing her hair was different, her voice and the inflections of it, her expression of eye, the droop of the lid and flicker of the long lash, and the sweet smile of her lip were, he now saw, all unchanged, and he pressed her to his breast in the rapture of the moment, forgetting that the transport which was soon to bear him away was at that supreme moment of joy having her fires banked up preparatory to putting to sea.
'And you love me, Laura?' he never was tired of repeating, and hearing the sweet admission that she did so. 'Oh, why have you concealed till this—why have you concealed yourself thus, and from me?'
'I wished to try you—to test you—to compel you to love me, and I have done so, have I not?' she asked, taking his face between her hands and gazing tenderly into his eyes.
'You know now what fettered my tongue,' said he, with a sigh.
'I knew you were in bondage—but it was in bondage to me. Your love for me was an insult to myself; your compliments and intentions in the present time, were an implied insult to my past. You dared to love me, knowing that you had a wife somewhere—where, you knew not; but you little thought that Mrs. Trelawney, the supposed widow of a mythical Trelawney, and Laura Dorillion were one and the same person. Now, is the situation dramatic? Do you remember that you told me that you loved me against your own will and conscience, and that my very name of Laura repressed that love at times? Heavens, could you but know what I felt—how my heart was wrung—my woman's pride alternately roused and crushed by admissions such as these! I have suffered greatly, darling, but all is over now,' she added, laying her cheek on his breast, while his lips were pressed to her forehead.
After a time, she spoke again.
'I knew not that you were in the Army, or were in life. I knew not of your existence till I met you suddenly at Aldershot, after I had lived years of seclusion in the Channel Isles. I thanked God for the discovery; I vowed to win you again, if I could, before I would reveal myself—and I have done so.'
She whose love he had so longed and prayed for, and yet striven to root out of his heart, was now his own—his own after all; and all the pent-up love of lonely years had found reward at last.
'Often before I met you again—discovered you, and vowed to make you mine again, I had pondered that, but for Netty's sake, whether, taking it all in all, the good with the bad, life was worth living,' said she, her eyes full of tears now.
'And till now, Laura, my life has seemed a gloomy and empty one. I was often appalled by the aimlessness and isolation of it.'