The Long Way by Mary Imlay Taylor

When Charter left Rachel so abruptly, he did not return to the city but, turning his face toward the country, walked steadily away from the habitations of men. His mood was one that sought solitude as a spiritual necessity, for, at the very moment when the journey's end seemed to have been achieved and the lovely presence of Rachel -- no longer a vision of his fevered fancy -- was actually assured, his universe had crumbled about his ears.

The fact that no intimation of an engagement to Belhaven had ever reached him made the blow more astonishing; it seemed incredible that she could have been married without his knowledge, that an event of such vital importance to him could have occurred without a warning or even a premonition. He recalled his foolish expressions of feeling, his interrupted declaration, with a kind of shamed anger. He must have appeared like an idiot, coming back after his long silence to make love to a woman who had had time, in the interval, to get married to another man. Yet not even his first resentment against her for permitting him to go so far unwarned, was of long duration; his mind was too occupied with the astonishing fact of her marriage. The shock had been so great that his senses were benumbed, and he was able to go across country, picking a path through the woods, without an idea of where he was going.