Åbo was obliterated. He was on board a ship—a ship plowing her way through the ice-fields as she neared Stockholm; salt sea air flicked his nostrils, he heard the broken ice tearing the keel like a million files, he was sensible of the crucial sensation—the tremendous quiver—as the vessel slipped from her bondage into the cradle of the sea, a sentient thing welcoming her own element!

The heart of the dreamer leaped to that strange sensation. He drew a long, sharp breath, and sat up, suddenly awake. It was over and done with—the coldness, the rigor, the region of ice bonds! The fingers of the future beckoned to him; the promises of the future lapped his ears as the waves had lapped the ship's sides.

He looked about him, at first excitedly, then confusedly, then a little shamedfacedly, for we are always involuntarily shamed at being tricked by our emotions into a false conception. Drawing his hand from his coat-pocket, he stretched himself with an assumption of ease, as though he saw and recognized the twinkle in the electric lamps and spontaneously rose to its demands.

The train was flying forward at unabated speed. Outside, the raw January air was clinging in a film to the carriage window; inside, the dim light and overheated air made an artificial atmosphere, enervating or stimulating according to the traveler's gifts. To this solitary voyager stimulation was obviously the effect produced, for, try as he might to cheat the inquisitive lamps, interest in every detail of his surroundings was portrayed in his face, in the poise of his head, the quickness of his glance as he gazed round the compartment, verifying the impression that he was alone.Yes, he was absolutely alone! Everything was as it had been when he
settled himself to sleep on the departure of the three strangers. There,
on the opposite seat, were their rugs, their fur-lined coats, their
illustrated papers—all the impedimenta of prosperous travellers; and
there, on the rack above them, was his own modest hand-bag without
initials or label—a common little bag that might have belonged to some
poor Russian clerk or held the possessions of some needy Polish student.
The owner's glance scanned and appraised it, then by suggestion fell to
the plain rough overcoat that covered him from his neck to the tops of
his high boots, and whose replica was to be seen any day in the meaner
streets of Petersburg or Moscow. Like the bag, it was a little strange,
a little incongruous in its comfortable surroundings—a little savoring
of mystery.

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