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He wandered aimlessly through the darkening streets, impatient of the slow hours. At last he came out on the Embankment. The sun was setting redly, frostily, in a gray world of sky-mist and river-mist and spectral bridge and spire. A shaking path-way of pale flame came across the gray of the hidden river to meet him. He stood a long time looking at it.
That river-mist rose from the meadows beneath like a large lake, and the moonlight pierced through it and mingled with it. It was such a night as lovers of a healthy, natural tone of mind might rejoice in; frost and snow being no refrigerators of true, honest warmth, but rather tending to keep it alive, by exhilarating the spirits and clearing the atmosphere.
I'll allow ye'll all be chilly and damp from river-mist afore long, so toast yerselves good." "How far have we come to-day?" inquired Mr. Wells, his mind always intent on reaching the scene of his cherished undertaking. "'Bout thirty-odd mile, I reckon. Not much on a trip, thet's sartin, but we'll pick up termorrer. We've some quicker water, an' the rafts hev to go separate."
There, at the top of the first short hill outside the town, after looking back on the white houses standing in the river-mist like so many ghosts in white muslin, I saw somebody whom my prophetic soul announced as a companion, looking wholly unlike a ghost, and very unlike a mist.
Before they reached the stifling town a slow breeze had moved the river-mist, until a curtain shut off the whole of the bazaar and merchants' quarters from the better residential section where the palaces stood. It was an ideal night for adventure; an almost perfect night for crime; one could step from street to street and leave no clue, because of the drifting vapor.
Over the low river-mist hiding the boat with its freight of young passionate life and all-forgetful happiness, the stars paled, and a silvery-grey tint crept over the sky from the eastward. There was not a breath of wind, not a rustle of stirring leaf, not a splash of leaping fish to disturb the serene repose of all living things on the banks of the great river.
"All laws break of themselves before us twain, who, having been hidden, are prepared for mating where we will and when.... And if the long flight be truly ended and the home forests guard our secret and if Tharon be God also and His stars the altar lights and his river-mist my veil " She faltered, and her clear gaze became confused. "Why should your Indians question you?" she asked.
Then followed laughter and scraps of song, merry talking, and good cheer, for they all made glad together. Across the fields beyond the hedge the pathway ran through Paris Garden, stark and clear in the white moon-shine, save here and there where the fog from the marsh crept down to meet the river-mist, and blotted out the landscape as it went.
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