d
qualities."

"Oh, undoubtedly! But to you who are so young, beautiful and educated,
to you with your views... You see, I have heard something about you."

He smiled so kindly and sympathetically, and his voice was so soft, a
breath of soul-cheering warmth filled the room. And in the heart of the
girl there blazed up more and more brightly the timid hope of finding
happiness, of being freed from the close captivity of solitude.

CHAPTER XII

A DENSE, grayish fog lay over the river, and a steamer, now and then
uttering a dull whistle, was slowly forging up against the current. Damp
and cold clouds, of a monotone pallor, enveloped the steamer from
all sides and drowned all sounds, dissolving them in their troubled
dampness. The brazen roaring of the signals came out in a muffled,
melancholy drone, and was oddly brief as it burst forth from the
whistle. The sound seemed to find no place for itself in the air, which
was soaked with heavy dampness, and fell downward, wet and choked. And
the splashing of the steamer's wheels sounded so fantastically dull that
it seemed as though it were not begotten near by, at the sides of the
vessel, but somewhere in the depth, on the dark bottom of the river.
From the steamer one could see neither the water, nor the shore, nor
the sky; a leaden-gray gloominess enwrapped it on all sides; devoid
of shadings, painfully monotonous, the gloominess was motionless, it
oppressed the steamer with immeasurable weight, slackened its movements
and seemed as though preparing itself to swallow it even as it was
swallowing the sounds. In spite of the dull blows of the paddles upon
the water and the measured shaking of the body of the vessel, it seemed
that the steamer was painfully struggling on one spot, suffocating in
agony, hissing like a fairy tale monster breathing his last, howling in
the pangs of death, howling with pain, and in the fear of death.

Lifeless were the steamer lights. About the lantern on the mast a yellow
motionless spot had formed; devoid of lustre, it hung in the fog over
the steamer, illuminating nothing save the gray mist. The red starboard
light looked like a huge eye crushed out by some one's cruel fist,
blinded, overflowing with blood. Pale rays of light fell from the
steamer's windows into the fog, and only tinted its cold, cheerless
dominion over the vessel, which was pressed on all sides by the
motionless mass of stifling dampness.

The smoke from the funnel fe