He had made this resolve after a struggle with himself, thinking of the strange fatality that had made duty painful throughout his entire life; and he walked toward the country because he believed the girl was in the direction of the town; probably seated in the church at that moment, watching the door for his approach. She was a comfort to him, therefore he must avoid her; but this had always been the case--he was accustomed to being warned that he was an intruder whenever he entered a pleasant place.
There was something in store for her besides a life of hiding and fear, and an unknown grave at last, with a fictitious name on the headboard; and he would not cross a path which led toward happiness for one he so much admired.
Thus he argued to himself as he walked along; but when he remembered how dull his life would be should her smile never come into it again, he could not help shuddering.
"But I have been so considerate of others," he said aloud, as he pursued his way, "that even the worms in my path impudently expected me to go round them, and seemed to honestly believe me unworthy of living at all if I did not. Let me not show a lack of consideration now that my heart is concerned."
Above his house, and so near the river that the water rippled at its base, was a rugged bluff, separated from the town by a deep and almost impassable ravine, and for this reason it was seldom visited; Allan Dorris had found it during his first month in the town, and he resolved to visit it now, and get the full benefit of the sunshine and delightful air of the perfect summer day.
It occurred to him as he sat down to rest, after making the difficult ascent, that he would like to build a house there, and live in it, where he would never be disturbed. But did he want solitude? There seemed to be some question of this, judging from the look of doubt on his downcast face. When he first came to Davy's Bend, he believed that the rewards of life were so unsatisfactory that all within his reach that he desired was his own company; but an experience of a month had satisfied him that solitude would not do, and he confessed that he did not know what he wanted. If he knew what it was his heart craved, he believed that it was beyond him, and unobtainable; and so his old habit of thinking was resumed, though he could never tell what it was all about. Everything he desired was impossible; that within his reach was distasteful--he could make no more of the jumble in his brain, and finally sat with a vacant stare on his face, thoroughly ashamed of the vagrant thoughts which gave him a headache but no conclusions.