plunged into the street.

The fog here swooped down, and to the embarrassment of his mind was
added the obscurity of light and distance, which halted him after a few
hurried steps, in utter perplexity. Indistinct figures were here and
there approaching him out of nothingness and melting away again into the
greenish gray chaos. He was in a busy thoroughfare; he could hear the
slow trample of hoofs, the dull crawling of vehicles, and the warning
outcries of a traffic he could not see. Trusting rather to his own speed
than that of a halting conveyance, he blundered on until he reached
the railway station. A short but exasperating journey of impulses and
hesitations, of detonating signals and warning whistles, and he at last
stood on the docks, beyond him a vague bulk or two, and a soft, opaque
flowing wall--the river!

But one steamer had left that day--the Dom Pedro, for the River
Plate--two hours before, but until the fog thickened, a quarter of an
hour ago, she could be seen, so his informant said, still lying, with
steam up, in midstream. Yes, it was still possible to board her. But
even as the boatman spoke, and was leading the way toward the landing
steps, the fog suddenly lightened; a soft salt breath stole in from the
distant sea, and a veil seemed to be lifted from the face of the gray
waters. The outlines of the two shores came back; the spars of nearer
vessels showed distinctly, but the space where the huge hulk had rested
was empty and void. There was a trail of something darker and more
opaque than fog itself lying near the surface of the water, but the Dom
Pedro was a mere speck in the broadening distance.

A bright sun and a keen easterly wind were revealing the curling ridges
of the sea beyond the headland when Randolph again passed the gates of
Dornton Hall on his way to the rectory. Now, for the first time, he was
able to see clearly the outlines of that spot which had seemed to him
only a misty dream, and even in his preoccupation he was struck by its
grave beauty. The leafless limes and elms in the park grouped themselves
as part of the picturesque details of the Hall they encompassed, and
the evergreen slope of firs and larches rose as a background to the
gray battlements, covered with dark green ivy, whose rich shadows were
brought out by the unwonted sunshine. With a half-repugnant curiosity he
had tried to identify the garden entrance and the fateful yew hedge the
captain had spoken of as he pas