It occurred to her to picture her reflections as they would have been had she made the journey alone. The image of Denzil, ill, suffering, lonely, craving for her, would have been continually evoked, to give her courage to complete her enterprise. She would have arrived at Savlinsky with her whole heart full of the thought of him. The presence of Felix, in his mood of disapproving criticism, changed all. It was he upon whom her consideration was fixed: he and his relation to herself. He inspired her with a feeling of self-condemnation, which she angrily repudiated, but from which she could not escape. She argued the thing in and out to herself all day, with increasing perturbation. Argue as she might, she came to no conclusion. Exonerate herself as she might, she could not shake off her unreasonable sense of guilt. Felix, who had perhaps not fallen asleep at once, nor easily, awoke only with the cessation of motion, and, hastily arising, stumbled into the rest-house to make his toilet. Rona, left to herself, descended from the povosska, and strolled about to stretch her cramped limbs, gazing with interest upon the little village which here surrounded the post-house. There was a cluster of wooden chalets, and, upon a mound hardly to be called a hill, a small church, also of wood, lifted its unpretentious finger to Heaven, gilded by the evening sunbeams. The girl walked up to it, and noticed that a flight of steps led up, outside the tower, to a wooden balcony surrounding the base of the spire, whence, probably, the bell was rung, as in many of the old churches in Brittany. It occurred to Rona that there must be a fine view of the surrounding country from the balcony, and that it would be interesting to ascend, and gaze upon the rolling steppe from its not very considerable altitude. She did so, and stood there in the effulgent light, looking down upon the tiny cluster of human occupation, which seemed merely to punctuate, without breaking, the vast encompassing solitude. Siberia! There it lay outspread at her feet, the minute section of the huge land which her finite human vision could embrace. How hard, when sitting upon the lawn at Normansgrave, to realize that Siberia existed all the time; that the sun was shining upon these strange places, illuminating the paths of these weird members of the great human family in their isolation! The sounds that rose to her from below--the voices of children, the trampling of horses, the faint stir village life--had the effect of drops of water falling into an abyss of encircling silence, a measureless void. It was almost terrible. In that wide setting, she and Felix! And they were unwilling, uncongenial companions.