might be the point of an island, it might be the
eastern land, as I was inclined to believe, for the moon was over our
right shoulders.

Probing along with the oar I found a cove and a shallow bottom, and
there I beached our craft with a great shove.

"How good the earth feels underfoot!" said Madame de Ferrier. We were
both stiff. I drew the boats where they could not be floated away, and
we turned our faces to the unknown. I took her unresisting arm to guide
her, and she depended upon me.

This day I look back at those young figures groping through cloud as at
disembodied and blessed spirits. The man's intensest tenderness,
restrained by his virginhood and his awe of the supple delicate shape at
his side, was put forth only in her service. They walked against bushes.
He broke a stick, and with it probed every yard of the ascent which they
were obliged to make. Helping his companion from bush to log, from seam
to seam of the riven slope, from ledge to ledge, he brought her to a
level of high forest where the fog was thinner, and branches interlaced
across their faces.

The climb made Madame de Ferrier draw her breath quickly. She laughed
when we ended it. Though I knew the shores as well as a hunter, it was
impossible to recognize any landmark. The trees, the moss, and forest
sponge under our feet, the very rocks, were changed by that weird
medium. And when the fog opened and we walked as through an endless
tunnel of gray revolving stone, it was into a world that never existed
before and would never exist again.

There was no path. Creeping under and climbing over obstacles, sometimes
enclosed by the whiteness of steam, sometimes walking briskly across
lighted spaces, we reached a gorge smoking as the lake smoked in the
chill of early mornings. Vapor played all its freaks on that brink. The
edge had been sharply defined. But the fog shut around us like a
curtain, and we dared not stir.

Below, a medallion shaped rift widened out, and showed us a scene as I
have since beheld such things appear upon the stage. Within the round
changing frame of wispy vapor two men sat by a fire of logs and
branches. We could smell wood smoke, and hear the branches crackle,
convincing us the vision was real. Behind them stood a cabin almost as
rude as my shelter on the island.

One man was a grand fellow, not at all of the common order, though he
was more plainly clothed than De Chaumont. His face was so familiar that
I almost g