Laudersdale's eye was caught thereby; stooping to take it, she read
with surprise her own name thereon, and ascended the stairs possessed
thereof.
What burden of bliss, what secret of sorrow, lay infolded there, that
at the first thought she covered it with sudden kisses, and the next,
crushing it against her heart, burst into a wild weeping? Again and
again she read it, and at every word its intense magnetic strength
thrilled her, rapt her from remembrance, conquered her. She seized a
pencil and wrote hurriedly:--
"You are right. With you I live, without you I die. You shut heaven out
from me; make earth, then, heaven. Come to me, for I love you. Yes, I
love you."
She did not stay to observe the contrast between her fervent sentences
and the weak, faint characters that expressed them, but hastily sought
the servant who was accustomed to act as postman, gave him directions to
acquaint her of its reception, and watched him out of sight. All that in
the swiftness of a fever-fit. Scarcely had the boat vanished when old
thoughts rushed over her again and she would have given her life to
recall it. Returning, she found Capua eagerly searching for the lost
letter, and thus learned that she was not to have received it until
several hours later.
Perhaps no other woman in her situation could have done what Mrs.
Laudersdale had done, without incurring more guilt.
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