the wash of the current, and in the railing under his hand he
felt the old wooden structure thrill and quiver in the constant
surge of water against the pier below him. The sun, a blood-red
disk, was slipping into the deepening haze, and on either side of
the river the city was darkening into dusk. All along the shore
lights were pricking out of the twilight and sending wavering
shafts down into the water. The coiling smoke from furnace
chimneys lay level and almost motionless in the still air;
sometimes it was shot with sparks, or showed, on its bellying
black curves, red gleams from hidden fires below.

David, staring at the river with absent, angry eyes, stopped his
miserable thoughts to watch a steamboat coming down the current.
Its smoke-stacks were folded back for passing under the bridge,
and its great paddlewheel scarcely moved except to get
steerageway. It was pushing a dozen rafts, all lashed together
into a spreading sheet. The smell of the fresh planks pierced the
acrid odor of soot that was settling down with the night mists.
On one of the rafts was a shanty of newly sawed pine boards; it
had no windows, but it was evidently a home, for a stove-pipe
came through its roof, and there was a woman sitting in its
little doorway, nursing her baby. David, looking down, saw the
downy head, and a little crumpled fist lying on the white, bare
breast. The woman, looking up as they floated below him, caught
his eye, and drew her blue cotton dress across her bosom. David
suddenly put his hand over his lips to hide their quiver. The
abrupt tears were on his cheeks. "Oh--_Elizabeth_!" he said.
The revolt, the anger, the jealousy, were all gone. He sobbed
under his breath. He had forgotten that he had said it made no
difference to him,--"not the slightest difference." It did make a