But where, during all this time, was the Doctor, who, for the sake of a few hundred dollars, had sent the poor settlers, ignorant of the country, in such a shameful manner into the wilderness? As he had now obtained his end, received the money, and left the strangers to their fate, the most natural thing for him to do was to take himself off, and carry away his plunder to a place of security--and such had been his original intention; but something on which he had not reckoned, and which he had not foreseen, forbade the execution of it; for a wild uncontrollable passion took possession of his heart for the lovely daughter of the Pastor. Blinded by love, he determined to follow the colony to its destination, and partly to weather the storm of those who would discover that they had been deceived, partly to turn it off--to remain in Bertha's neighbourhood, perhaps to make her his wife--at all events, to be able to call her his. With this object he had, as a primary step, to ascertain what her feelings were towards him, and it was for this that he had approached her, on the last morning, with a confession of his love. But her cold behaviour showed him at once what he had to hope from her heart and feelings; moreover, it could not escape him how she blushed and became embarrassed at the allusion to Werner. At a glance--with the glance of a man of the world--he saw that nothing was to be accomplished there by honest wooing; but he was not the man so readily to give up a plan he had once formed. During eleven years past a sojourner in foreign lands, during the latter portion of that time in America, he had learned to surmount whatever obstacles might come in his way; and as he was not particular whether he resorted to honest or dishonest means, if he could only attain the ends he had proposed to himself, he seldom failed in carrying out his plans. But, to follow to Tennessee those very settlers who had been deceived by him, to play a part in all those unpleasant scenes which he could very well foresee, and yet not advance a step nearer to his aim, did not seem to him expedient. He determined, therefore, on remaining in Cincinnati for the present; for that Bertha must be his he had vowed, and only the more stimulated by the obstacles to the realization of his project, he now considered ways and means to carry off, by force, the girl who would not voluntarily follow him.