"Mr. Haldane," said Laura gravely, but with rising color, "I am not a woman. In years and feelings I am scarcely more than a child. It may not be proper or conventional for me to stop and talk so long to you, but I have acted from the natural impulse of a young girl brought up in a secluded country home. I shall return thither tomorrow, and I am glad I have seen you once more, for I wished you to know that I did feel sorry for you, and that I hoped you might succeed. I greatly wish you would see Mrs. Arnot, or let me tell her where she can see you, and send to you what she wishes. She has heard of you once or twice, but does not know where to find you. Will you not let me tell her?"
He shook his head decidedly.
"Well, then, good-by," said she kindly, and was about to depart.
"Wait," he said hastily; "will you do me one small favor?"
"Yes, if I ought."
"This is my father's watch and chain," he continued, taking them off. "They are not safe with me in my present life. I do not wish to have it in my power to take them to a pawnshop. I would rather starve first, and yet I would rather not be tempted. I can't explain. You cannot and should not know anything about the world in which I am living. Please give these to Mrs. Arnot, and ask her to keep them till I come for them; or she can send them, with the rest of my effects, to my mother. I have detained you too long already. Whatever may be my fate, I shall always remember you with the deepest gratitude and respect."
There was distress in Laura's face as he spoke; but she took the watch and chain without a word, for she saw that he was fully resolved upon his course.
"I know that Mrs. Arnot will respect my wish to remain in obscurity until I can come with a character differing from that which I now bear. Your life would be a very happy one, Miss Romeyn, if my wishes could make it so;" and the wood-sawyer bowed his farewell with the grace and dignity of a gentleman, in spite of his coarse laborer's garb. He then resumed his work, to the great relief of the woman, who had caught glimpses of the interview from her window, wondering and surmising why the "young leddy from the big house" should have so much to say to a wood-sawyer.
"If she had a-given him a tract upon leavin', it would a-seemed more nateral like," she explained to a crony the latter part of the day.