Behind all this, I think, and confirming my feeling, was the fact that Miss Colton did not repeat her call. A week or more passed and she did not come. I caught glimpses of her occasionally in the auto, or at the post-office, but I took care that she should not see me. I did not wish to be seen, though precisely why I could not have explained even to myself. The memory of that night in the rain, and of our meetings in the grove, troubled me because I could not keep them from my mind. They kept recurring, no matter what I did or where I went. No, I did not want to meet her again. Somehow, the sight and memory of her made me more dissatisfied and discontented than ever. I found myself moodily wishing for things beyond my reach, longing to be something more than I was--more than the nobody which I knew I must always be. I remembered my feelings on the morning of the day when I first saw her. Now they seemed almost like premonitions. I kept away; not only from her, but from George Taylor and Captain Dean and the townspeople. I went to the village scarcely at all. Sim Eldredge, who had evidently received orders from headquarters to drop the Lane “agency,” troubled me no more, merely glowering reproachfully when we met; and Alvin Baker, whose note had been renewed, although he hailed me with effusive cordiality, did not press his society upon me, having no axe to grind at present. Zeb Kendrick was using the Lane again, but he took care to bring no more “billiard roomers” as passengers. I had as yet heard nothing from my quarrel with Tim Hallet. I spent a good deal of my time in the Comfort, or wandering about the shore and in the woods. One warm, cloudy morning the notion seized me to go up to the ponds and try for black bass. There are bass in some of the larger ponds--lakes they would be called anywhere else except on Cape Cod--and, if one is lucky, and the weather is right, and the bait tempting, they may be caught. This particular morning promised to furnish the proper brand of weather, and a short excursion on the flats provided a supply of shrimps and minnows for bait. Dorinda, who happened to be in good humor, put up a lunch for me and, at seven o'clock, with my rod and landing net in their cases, strapped, with my fishing boots and coffee pot, to my back, and my bait pail in one hand and lunch basket in the other, I started on my tramp. It was a long four miles to Seabury's Pond, my destination, and Lute, to whom, like most country people, the idea of a four-mile walk was sheer lunacy, urged my harnessing the horse and driving there. But I knew the overgrown wood roads and the difficulty of piloting a vehicle through them, and, moreover, I really preferred to go afoot. So I marched off and left him protesting.