with his eyes fixed upon the ground and every nerve braced to
resist the influence of the place and its undying memories. But
with the striking of his foot against the boards of the bridge,
nature was too much for him, and his resolve vanished. Instead of
hastening on, he stopped; and, having stopped, paused long enough
to take in all the features of the scene, and any changes which
time might have wrought. He even forced his shrinking eyes to turn
and gaze upon the exact spot where his beloved Algernon had been
found, with his sightless eyes turned to the sky.

This latter place, singular in that it lay open to the opposite
bank without the mask of bush or tree to hide it, was in immediate
proximity to the end of the bridge he had attempted to cross. It
bore the name of Dark Hollow, and hollow and dark it looked in the
universal gloom. But the power of its associations was upon him,
and before he knew it, he was retracing his steps as though drawn
by a magnetism he could not resist, till he stood within this
hollow and possibly on the very foot of ground from the mere
memory of which he had recoiled for years.

A moment of contemplation--a sigh, such as only escapes the
bursting heart in moments of extreme grief or desolation--and he
tore his eyes from the ground to raise them slowly but with deep
meaning to where the high line of trees on the opposite side of
the ravine met the grey vault of the sky. Darkness piled itself
against darkness, but with a difference to one who knew all the
undulations of this bluff and just where it ended in the sheer
fall which gave a turn to the road at the farther end of the
bridge.