Poor fellow! He might as well have said, "If I had not been myself, all this might have been as I have imagined." He had acted naturally, and in accordance with his defective character; he had been himself, and that was the secret of all his troubles. He sprang up, exclaiming in anger: "Mother made a weak fool of me, and I was willing to be a fool. Now we are bothing reaping our reward." He went off among the cottages looking for employment, but found little encouragement. The people were, as a general thing, in humble circumstances, and did their work among themselves. But at last he found, near the ravine, a small dwelling standing quite apart from any others, before which a load of wood had been thrown. The poor woman whose gateway it obstructed was anxious to have it sawed up and carried to her little wood-shed, but was disposed to haggle about the price. "Give me what you please," said Haldane, throwing off his coat; "I take the job;" and in a few moments the youth who had meditated indefinite heights of "gloomy grandeur" appeared--save to the initiated--as if he had been born a wood-sawyer. He was driving his saw in the usual strong, dogged manner in which he performed such tasks, when a light step caused him to look up suddenly, and he found himself almost face to face with Laura Romeyn. He started violently; the blood first receded from his face, and then rushed tumultuously back. She, too, seemed much surprised and startled, and stopped hesitatingly, as if she did not know what to do. But Haldane had no doubt as to his course. He felt that he had no right to speak to her, and that she might regard it as an insult if he did; therefore he bent down to his work again with a certain proud humility which Laura, even in her perturbation, did not fail to notice. In her diffidence and confusion she continued past him a few steps, and, although he expected nothing less, the fact that she did not recognize or speak to him cut to his heart with a deeper pain than he had yet suffered. With a gesture similar to that which he made when she saw him on the way to prison, he dashed his hat down over his eyes, and drove his saw through the wood with savage energy. She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, then yielding to her impulse, came to his side. His first intimation of her presence was the scarcely heard tones of her voice mingling with the harsh rasping of the saw. "Will you not speak to me, Mr. Haldane?" she asked. He dropped his saw, stood erect, trembled slightly, but did not answer or even raise his eyes to her face. His pain was so great he was not sure of his self-control. "Perhaps," she added timidly, "you do not wish me to speak to you." "I now have no right to speak to you, Miss Romeyn," he answered in a tone which his suppressed feelings rendered constrained and almost harsh. "But I feel sorry for you," said she quickly, "and so does my aunt, and she greatly--"