The weeping Laura sank upon her knees, and Montreville laid one hand upon her hand, while she still held the other, as if wishing to detain him. 'My best—my last blessing be upon thee, child of my heart,' said he. 'The everlasting arms be around thee, when mine can embrace thee no more. The Father of the fatherless be a parent to thee; support thee in sorrow; crown thy youth with joy—thy gray hairs with honour; and, when thou art summoned to thy kindred angels, may thy heart throb its last on some breast kind and noble as thine own.'
Exhausted by the effort which he had made, Montreville sunk back on his pillow; and Laura, in agony of supplication, besought Heaven to spare him to her. 'Father of mercies!' she inwardly ejaculated, 'if it be possible, save me, oh save me from this fearful stroke,—or take me in pity from this desolate wilderness to the rest of thy chosen.'
The dead of night came on, and all but the wretched Laura was still. Montreville breathed softly. Laura thought he slept, and stifled even her sighs, lest they should wake him. In the stillness of the dead, but in agony of suspence that baffles description, she continued to kneel by his bed-side, and to return his relaxing grasp, till she felt a gentle pressure of her hand, and looked up to interpret the gesture. It was the last expression of a father's love. Montreville was gone!
CHAPTER XVIII
Colonel Hargrave had been the spoiled child of a weak mother, and he continued to retain one characteristic of spoiled children; some powerful stimulant was with him a necessary of life. He despised all pleasures of regular recurrence and moderate degree; and even looked down upon those who could be satisfied with such enjoyments, as on beings confined to a meaner mode of existence. For more than a year Laura had furnished the animating principle which kept life from stagnation. When she was present, her beauty, her reserve, her ill-concealed affection, kept his passions in constant play. In her absence, the interpretations of looks and gestures, of which she had been unconscious, and the anticipation of concessions which she thought not of making, furnished occupation for the many hours which, for want of literary habit, Colonel Hargrave was obliged to pass in solitude and leisure, when deprived of fashionable company, public amusements, and tolerable romances. In a little country town, these latter resources were soon exhausted, and Hargrave had no associates to supply the blank among his brother officers; some of whom were low both in birth and education, and others, from various reasons, rather repelling, than courting his intimacy. One had a pretty wife, another an unmarried daughter; and the phlegmatic temperament and reserved manners of a third tallied not with Hargrave's constitutional warmth. The departure of Laura, therefore, deprived him at once of the only society that amused, and the only object that interested him. He was prevented by the caution of Mrs Douglas from attempting a correspondence with his mistress; and his muse was exhausted with composing amatory sonnets, and straining half-imaginary torments into reluctant rhimes.
He soon tired of making sentimental visits to the now deserted Glenalbert, and grew weary of inspecting his treasures of pilfered gloves and stray shoe-bows. His new system of reform, too, sat rather heavily upon him. He was not exactly satisfied with its extent, though he did not see in what respect he was susceptible of improvement. He had some suspicion that it was not entitled to the full approbation of the 'wise, the pious, the sober-minded' observers, whom he imagined that Laura had charged with the inspection of his conduct; and he reflected, with a mixture of fear and impatience, that by them every action would be reported to Laura, with all the aggravation of illiberal comment. For though he did not distinctly define the idea to himself, he cherished a latent opinion, that the 'wise' would be narrow-minded, the 'pious' bigotted, and the 'sober-minded' cynical. The feeling of being watched is completely destructive of comfort, even to those who have least to conceal; and Colonel Hargrave sought relief at once from restraint and ennui, in exhibiting, at the Edinburgh races, four horses which were the envy of all the gentleman, and a person which was the admiration of all the ladies. His thoughts dissipated, and his vanity gratified, his passion had never, since its first existence, been so little troublesome as during his stay in Edinburgh; and once or twice, as he caught a languishing glance from a gay young heiress, he thought he had been a little precipitate in changing his first designs in regard to Laura. But alas! the races endure only for one short week; Edinburgh was deserted by its glittering birds of passage; and Hargrave returned to his quarters, to solitude, and to the conviction that, however obtained, the possession of Laura was necessary to his peace.
Finding that her return was as uncertain as ever, he resolved to follow her to London; and the caution of Mrs Douglas baffling his attempts to procure her address from any other quarter, he contrived to obtain it by bribing one of the under attendants of the Post Office to transcribe for him the superscription of a letter to Miss Montreville. Delighted with his success, he could not refuse himself the triumph of making it known to Mrs Douglas; and, by calling to ask her commands for her young friend, occasioned the letter of caution from her to Laura, which has been formerly mentioned.
The moment he reached London, he hastened to make inquiries after the abode of Captain Montreville; but his search was disappointed by the accidents which he afterwards related to Laura. Day after day, he hoped that Laura, by sending to Mr Baynard's chambers, would afford him the means of discovering her residence. But every day ended in disappointment; and Hargrave, who, intending to devote all his time to her, had given no intimation to his friends of his arrival in town, found himself as solitary, listless, and uncomfortable as before he quitted Scotland.
One evening, when, to kill the time, he had sauntered into the Theatre, he renewed his acquaintance with the beautiful Lady Bellamer. Two years before, Hargrave had been the chief favourite of Lady Bellamer, then Miss Walpole. Of all the danglers whom beauty, coquetry, and fifty thousands pounds attracted to her train, none was admitted to such easy freedom as Hargrave. She laughed more heartily at his wit, whispered more familiarly in his ear, and slapped him more frequently on the cheek than any of his rivals. With no other man was she so unreasonable, troublesome, and ridiculous. In short, she ran through the whole routine of flirtation, till her heart was entangled, so far at least as the heart of a coquette is susceptible of that misfortune. But whatever flames were kindled in the lady's breast, the gentleman, as is usual on such occasions, escaped with a very slight tinge. While Miss Walpole was present, his vanity was soothed by her blandishments, and his senses touched by her charms; but, in her absence, he consoled himself with half a dozen other affairs of the same kind.