He seemed to have been committing sins in spite of himself.

Broken nerves and sleepless nights often result in a morbid conscience.

And what business had he to wander over this very road at two o'clock in the morning, and to see three galloping horsemen, one of them on a horse with a white left forefoot and a white nose?
What business had he watching Dr.Small as he went home from the bedside of a dying patient near daylight in the morning?
And because he felt guilty he felt cross with Mirandy, and to her remark about Hannah he only replied that "Hannah was a smart girl." "Yes," said Mirandy, "Bud thinks so." "Does he ?" said Ralph.
"I should say so.

What's him and her been a-courtin' fer for a year ef he didn't think she was smart?
Marm don't like it; but ef Bud and her does, and they seem to, I don't see as it's marm's lookout." When one is wretched, there is a pleasure in being entirely wretched.
Ralph felt that he must have committed some unknown crime, and that some Nemesis was following him.

Was Hannah deceitful?
At least, if she were not, he felt sure that he could supplant Bud.