It was the same old story over again; Allan Dorris was desperately in love with Annie Benton, but she must not be in love with him, for he was dangerous, and whether this was true or not, his companion did not believe it. He told in a hundred ways, though in language which might have meant any one of a hundred things, that she was his dream come true, and of the necessity which existed for him to avoid her. Occasionally he would forget to be grave, and make sport of himself, and laugh at what he had been saying; and at these times Annie Benton was convinced more than ever that he was not a dangerous man, as he said, for there was an honest gentility in his manner, and a gentle respect for her womanhood in everything he did; therefore she listened attentively to what he said, saying but little herself, as he requested. Although he made love to her in many ingenious ways, and moved Annie Benton as she had never been moved before, he did not so intend it. Could his motives have been impartially judged, that must have been the verdict; but while he knew that his love was out of place in the keeping of the girl, he could not resist the temptation of giving it to her, and then asking her to refuse it. Several times Annie Benton attempted to speak, but he held up his hand as a warning. "Don't say anything that you will regret," he said. "Let me do that; I am famous for it. I never talked ten minutes in my life that I didn't say something that caused me regret for a year. But I will never regret anything I have said to you, for I have only made a confession which has been at my tongue's end for years. I have known you all my life; you know nothing of me, and care less, therefore let it be as I suggest." "But just a word," the girl insisted. "You do not understand what I would say--" "I don't know what you would say, but I can imagine what a lady like you _should_ say under such circumstances, and I beg the favor of your silence. Let me imagine what I please, since that can be of little consequence to you." There was a noise at the front door, and old Thompson came in. Dorris bowed himself out, followed by a scowl, and as he walked along toward his own house he thought that his resolution to see Annie Benton no more would at least save him from a quarrel with her father. CHAPTER XII. RUINED BY KINDNESS. John Bill, editor of the Davy's Bend _Triumph_, was ruined by a railroad pass. When he taught school over in the bottoms, on the other side of the river, and was compelled to pay his fare when he travelled, he seldom travelled, and therefore put his money carefully away, but when he invested his savings in the _Triumph_, and the railroad company sent him an annual pass, he made up for lost time, and travelled up and down the road almost constantly, all his earnings being required to pay his expenses.