His prison and mission classes missed him sadly. Mr. Growther found that he could no longer live a hermit's life, and began in good earnest to look for the "little, peaked-faced chap" that had grown to be more and more of a reality to him; but the rest of Hillaton almost forgot that Haldane had ever existed.
In the autumn he returned, brown and vigorous, and entered upon his studies at the medical school connected with the university with decided zest. To his joy he found a letter from Mrs. Arnot, informing him that the health of her niece was fully restored, and that they were about to return. And yet it was with misgivings that he remembered that Laura would henceforth be an inmate of Mrs. Arnot's home. As a memory, however beautiful, she was too shadowy to disturb his peace. Would this be true if she had fulfilled all the rich promises of her girlhood, and he saw her often?
With a foreboding of future trouble he both dreaded and longed to see once more the maiden who had once so deeply stirred his heart, and who in the depths of his disgrace had not scorned him when accidentally meeting him in the guise and at the tasks of a common laborer.
It was with a quickened pulse that he read in the "Spy" one Monday evening, that Mrs. Arnot and niece had arrived in town. It was with a quicker pulse that he received a note from her a few days later asking him to call that evening, and adding that two or three other young men whom he knew to be her especial favorites would be present.
Because our story has confined itself chiefly to the relations existing between Haldane and Mrs. Arnot, it must not be forgotten that her active sympathies were enlisted in behalf of many others, some of whom were almost equally attached to her and she to them.
After a little thought Haldane concluded that he would much prefer that his first interview with Laura should be in the presence of others, for he could then keep in the background without exciting remark.
He sincerely hoped that when he saw her he might find that her old power over him was a broken spell, and that the lovely face which had haunted him all these years, growing more beautiful with time, was but the creation of his own fancy. He was sure she would still be pretty, but if that were all he could go on his way without a regretful thought. But if the shy maiden, whose half-entreating, compassionate tones had interrupted the harsh rasping of his saw years ago, were the type of the woman whom he should meet that evening, might not the bitterest punishment of his folly be still before him?