The white hands were clasped imploringly, the dark eyes were lifted pleadingly as the sad words fell from Laurel's lips. Beatrix Wentworth and Clarice Wells, her judges and accusers, looked gravely upon the tortured face of the culprit—the fairest culprit that was ever arraigned for her sin.
"Do you call it happiness?" said Beatrix Wentworth. "I should not think you would know one happy hour, living on the verge of a volcano that may destroy you at any moment. I should think that your sorrow and repentance would almost kill you."
"But I do not repent!" cried Laurel desperately. "I shall never repent while I remain with St. Leon. I am too happy, in spite of my fears, for sorrow or repentance. When I am torn away from him, when I have lost his love, then I shall repent, then I shall understand the depths of my dreadful sin; but never before!"
They looked at her in wonder. They could not understand her. Surely she was mad—the glamour of passion had obscured her reason!
"And when the end comes—when he has put you from him—what will you do then, poor child!" asked Beatrix, slowly.
"Then I shall die," the beautiful girl answered, despairingly.
And again they did not know what to say to her. She had no thoughts outside of this love that she held by so slight a thread. She could see nothing beyond it but death. Beatrix could not help feeling vexed with her. She loved her own young husband with a fond, romantic love, but she could not comprehend the madness of Laurel's devotion.
"It is not so easy to die, Laurel," she said, impatiently. "You are a woman now, and you must not answer me like a child. Your sin will find you out some day, and you will perhaps be cast adrift on the world. You should have some plans formed for that time."
There was a moment's silence; then Laurel murmured, tremblingly:
"St. Leon loves me—perhaps he will forgive me."