Chapter One Hundred.
Joy.
Joy!
There was this under the evergreen oak, when it was discovered that only the suicide was a success, and the attempt at assassination a failure. There was this in the heart of Louise Poindexter, on learning that her lover still lived.
Though saddened by the series of tragedies so quickly transpiring, she was but human; and, being woman, who can blame her for giving way to the subdued happiness that succeeded? Not I. Not you, if you speak truly.
The passion that controlled her may not be popular under a strictly Puritan standard. Still is it according to the dictates of Nature—universal and irresistible—telling us that father, mother, sister, and brother, are all to be forsaken for that love illimitable; on Earth only exceeded—sometimes scarce equalled—by the love of self.
Do not reproach the young Creole, because this passion was paramount in her soul. Do not blame her for feeling pleasure amidst moments that should otherwise have been devoted to sadness. Nor, that her happiness was heightened, on learning from the astonished spectators, how her lover’s life had been preserved—as it might seem miraculously.
The aim of the assassin had been true enough. He must have felt sure of it, before turning the muzzle towards his own temples, and firing the bullet that had lodged in his brain. Right over the heart he had hit his intended victim, and through the heart would the leaden missile have made its way, but that a gage d’amour—the gift of her who alone could have secured it such a place—turned aside the shot, causing it to ricochet!