[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
All of the young bride's happiness began to wane from that hour. The shadow of the nearing future began to fall upon her heart. The "coming events cast their shadows before."
A subtle change came over her. Her cheek was a shade less bright, her voice had an unconscious tone of pathos, the dark eyes drooped beneath their shady lashes. Sometimes she fell into deep reveries that lasted for hours. The return voyage was not so pleasant by any means as the other had been. Laurel was going away from her peril then, she was returning to it now.
St. Leon gave all his thoughts and all his love to his fair bride. Now he divided them with her and his mother. He was very fond of his handsome, stately lady mother, and deeply distressed over her illness. He longed to fly to her on the wings of love. He chafed over their slow progress, bitterly impatient of the adverse winds and waves that hindered the gallant ship from making progress. If he had known how his wife welcomed every storm he would have been horrified. If some hidden rock had sunk the steamer, and she and St. Leon had gone to the bottom clasped
"In one another's arms,
And silent in a last embrace,"
she would have been glad, she would have thought that that was happiness compared with what lay before her.
St. Leon did not notice the slight yet subtle change in his darling, so absorbed was he in anxiety over his mother. Perhaps he thought she shared in his trouble. He knew that her devotion to him was more manifest than ever before, and he repaid it with the love of his inmost heart, but he was very grave and thoughtful. The dread that he might find his mother dead weighed heavily on his spirits.
Poor Laurel in her terror for herself did not give many thoughts to Mrs. Le Roy. The lesser evil was swallowed up in the greater. The Gordons had returned to New York in the spring. Once she returned home, a meeting with them was inevitable. And then—what! Detection, exposure, banishment, despair!
Through all her dread and terror one spark of hope burned feebly in her heart. She knew that her husband loved her with a deep, and mighty love. Perhaps through that love he would forgive her.
"I could forgive him anything," she said to herself with the divine love of woman. "Surely, surely he will forgive me!"