His parting from Mrs. Poland and Amy tested his self-control severely. In accordance with her impulsive nature, Amy put her arms about his neck as she said brokenly: "You were indeed God's messenger to us, and you brought us life. As father said, we shall all meet again." On his return, Mrs. Arnot's greeting was that of a mother; but there were traces of constraint in Laura's manner. When she first met him she took his hand in a strong, warm pressure, and said, with tears in her eyes: "Mr. Haldane, I thank you for your kindness to Amy and auntie as sincerely as if it had all been rendered to me alone." But after this first expression of natural feeling, Haldane was almost tempted to believe that she shunned meeting his eyes, avoided speaking to him, and even tried to escape from his society, by taking Mr. Beaumont's arm and strolling off to some other apartment, when he was calling on Mrs. Arnot. And yet if this were true, he was also made to feel that it resulted from no lack of friendliness or esteem on her part. "She fears that my old-time passion may revive, and she would teach me to put a watch at the entrance of its sepulchre," he at length concluded; "she little thinks that my love, so far from being dead, is a chained giant that costs me hourly vigilance to hold in lifelong imprisonment." But Laura understood him much better than he did her. Her manner was the result of a straightforward effort to be honest. Of her own free will, and without even the slightest effort on the part of her uncle and aunt to incline her toward the wealthy and distinguished Mr. Beaumont, she had accepted all his attentions, and had accepted the man himself. In the world's estimation she would not have the slightest ground to find fault with him, for, from the first, both in conduct and manner, he had been irreproachable.