So, to take up life and begin again was no great evil. She saw her way.
She would be brave and strong; she would make the best of, what was left
for her among the possibilities.

She sent for the lecture agent, and matters were soon arranged.

Straightway, all the papers were filled with her name, and all the dead
walls flamed with it. The papers called down imprecations upon her head;
they reviled her without stint; they wondered if all sense of decency was
dead in this shameless murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this heartless
seducer of the affections of weak and misguided men; they implored the
people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless daughters, for
the sake of decency, for the sake of public morals, to give this wretched
creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient evidence to her and
to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul
acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a
higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no
abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical
admiration. Everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme
of her proposed discourse, and marveled how she would handle it.

Laura's few friends wrote to her or came and talked with her, and pleaded
with her to retire while it was yet time, and not attempt to face the
gathering storm. But it was fruitless. She was stung to the quick by
the comments of the newspapers; her spirit was roused, her ambition was
towering, now. She was more determined than ever. She would show these
people what a hunted and persecuted woman could do.

The eventful night came. Laura arrived before the great lecture hall in
a close carriage within five minutes of the time set for the lecture to