eat of the machinery, the alternating
crash and pause of the great paddle-wheels, the unhasting backward sweep
of the brown flood, all these were in harmony with the sensuous languor
of time and place.

For the moment Charlotte Farnham yielded in pure delight to the spell of
the encompassments, fancying she could deny her lineage and look upon
this sylvan Southland world through the eyes of those to whom it was
the birthland. Then the haunting scene in the New Orleans bank returned
to disenchant her; and after striving vainly to put it aside, she
reopened her book. But by this time the story had lost its hold upon
her, and when she had read a page or two with only the vaguest possible
notion of what it was all about, she gave up in despair and let the
relentless recollection have its will of her.

From where she was sitting she could see the steamer's yawl swinging
from its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowly
borne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it became
evident that the boat would shortly fall into the river and go adrift,
she got up and put the book aside, meaning to go forward and tell the
captain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to make
the loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let him pass.

It was Griswold. Up to that moment he had thrown himself so zealously
into the impersonation of his latest role as to be able to stand
indifferently well in the shoes of the man whom he had supplanted. But
at this crisis the machinery of dissimulation slipped a cog. Where the
ordinary deck-hand would have gone about his errand heedless of the
presence of the two women passengers, the proxy John Wesley Gavitt must
needs take off his cap and apologize for passing in front of them.

Something half familiar in his manner of doing it attracted Charlotte's
attention, and her eyes followed him as he went on and hoisted the yawl
into place. When he came back she had a fair sight of his face and her
eyes met his. In the single swift glance half-formed suspicion became
undoubted certainty; she looked again and her heart gave a great bound
and then seemed suddenly to forget its office. While he was passing she
clung to the back of her chair and forebore to cry out or otherwise to
advertise her emotion. But when the strain was off she sank into her
seat and closed her eyes to grapple with the unnerving discovery. It was
useless to try to escape from the disma