t's very quiet, _very_ quiet,' said he; 'I wonder if a
man, once engulfed in it, feels peace.' He pressed his hand to his breast,
and muttered: '_Here_ it is gone forever!'

He loitered listlessly on, under the trees. His step was feeble; and he
stooped and tottered, as if decrepid. He stopped again, shook his head,
and went on, looking upon the ground, and at times long and wistfully at
the river.

An old man, leaning on a stout cane, who had been watching him, at last
came up. Raising his hat, as he did so, he said:

'You seem, like myself, to be an admirer of this noble river?'

Rust looked up at him sharply, ready to gather in his energies, if
necessary. But there was nothing in the mild, dignified face of the
speaker to invite suspicion, and he replied in a feeble tone:

'Yes, yes; it is a noble river.'

'I've seen many, in my long life,' said the other, 'and have never met its
equal.'

Rust paused, as if he did not hear him, and then continued in a musing
tone:

'How smooth it is! how calm! Many have found peace there, who never found
it in life. Drowning's an easy death, I'm told.'

The stranger replied gravely, and even sternly:

'They have escaped the troubles of life, and plunged into those of
eternity;' and then, as if willing to give Rust an opportunity of
explaining away the singular character of the remark, he said: 'I hope
_you_ do not meditate suicide?'

'No,' replied Rust, quietly, 'not at present; but I've often thought that
many a wrecked spirit will find _there_ what it never found on
earth--peace.'

'The body may,' returned the other, 'but not the soul.'

Rust smiled doubtfully, and walked off. The man watched, and even followed
him; but seeing him turn from the river, he took another direction,
occasionally pausing to look back. Not so Rust. From the time he had
parted with the stranger, he had forgotten him, and his thoughts wandered
back to their old theme. It was strange that he should believe so
implicitly Grosket's tale, coming as it did from one whom he knew hated
him. Yet he _did_ believe it. There was proof of its truth in Grosket's
manner; in his look; in his tone of assured triumph. Yet although Rust
brooded over nothing else that livelong day, he could not realize it; he
could not appreciate how desolate and lonely he was. He could only fancy
how life would be, if what Grosket had told him _had_ happened. 'This is
not all a dream, I suppose,' muttered he, pausing as he we