She could not live without seeing him.

Would he smile as in the old days when she loved him so; or would he sneer as when she last saw him?
If be looked so, she hated him.

If he should call her "Laura, darling," and look SO! She must find him.

She must end her doubts.
Laura kept her room for two days, on one excuse and another--a nervous headache, a cold--to the great anxiety of the Senator's household.
Callers, who went away, said she had been too gay--they did not say "fast," though some of them may have thought it.

One so conspicuous and successful in society as Laura could not be out of the way two days, without remarks being made, and not all of them complimentary.
When she came down she appeared as usual, a little pale may be, but unchanged in manner.