When she came to herself the Colonel was gone.  Washington Hawkins stood at her bedside.  Did she come to herself?  Was there anything left in her heart but hate and bitterness, a sense of an infamous wrong at the hands of the only man she had ever loved?

She returned to Hawkeye.  With the exception of Washington and his mother, no one knew what had happened.  The neighbors supposed that the engagement with Col.  Selby had fallen through.  Laura was ill for a long time, but she recovered; she had that resolution in her that could conquer death almost.  And with her health came back her beauty, and an added fascination, a something that might be mistaken for sadness.  Is there a beauty in the knowledge of evil, a beauty that shines out in the face of a person whose inward life is transformed by some terrible experience?  Is the pathos in the eyes of the Beatrice Cenci from her guilt or her innocence?

Laura was not much changed.  The lovely woman had a devil in her heart.  That was all.