He paused for a moment, looking into the empty air, where his dream seemed to realize before him, for he looked intently at it, and went on to describe it.
"It was not an angel's face, but a woman's, and there was no expression in it that was not human; expressions of love, and pity, and forgiveness—you have them in your face now, and I believe they are not uncommon. I have never expected unreal or impossible things, and as I grew older, and better understood the unsatisfactory nature of life, I became more than ever convinced that I would feel entirely satisfied could my dream come true. At last I came to believe that it was impossible; that I was as unreasonable as the man who pined because his tears were not diamonds; but I could not give up the recollection of the face, to which I was always so true and devoted, and comforted myself with brooding over it, and regretting my misfortune. Instead of greatness or grandeur, I longed for the face, and it was the only one I ever loved."
Again he was gazing intently at nothing; at his fancy, but this time he seemed to be dismissing it forever, after a careful inspection to convince himself that the counterpart he had found on earth was exactly like it.
"Until I met you," he said, looking at Annie Benton again, "this sweetheart of my fancy lived in Heaven, Maid of Air. When you turned upon me that afternoon in the church, I almost exclaimed aloud: 'The face! My vision has come true!' Not a feature was missing, and your actions and your smile were precisely what I had seen so often in my fancy. Therefore you are not a stranger to me; I have loved you all my life, and instead of worshipping a vision in the future I shall worship you. Why don't you speak to me?"
"I don't dare to," she answered, looking him full in the face, and without the slightest hesitation. "I am afraid I would say something I ought not to."
He looked at her curiously for a moment, trying to divine her meaning, and concluded that if she should speak more freely, he would hear something surprising; either she would denounce him for his boldness, or profess a love for him which would compel him to give up his resolution of never seeing her again.
"That was an unfortunate expression," he said. "I am sorry you said that, for it has pleased my odd fancy; indeed, it is precisely what I was hoping you would say, but there is all the more reason now for my repeating to you that I am dangerous. I know how desperate my affairs are; how desperate I am, and how unfortunate it would be if you should become involved. Therefore I say to you, as a condemned prisoner might shut out the single ray of light which brightened his existence, so that he might meet his inevitable fate bravely, that you must avoid me, and walk another way when you see me approaching."
A hoarse whistle came to them from the ferry in the river, and Dorris thought of it as an angry warning from a monster, in whose keeping he was, to come away from a presence which afforded him pleasure.
"May I speak a word?" the girl inquired, turning abruptly toward him.
"Yes; a dozen, or a thousand, though I would advise you not to."