midnight
`` You have hoped impossibilities then , '' replied Montoni ; `` I might as reasonably have expected to find sincerity and uniformity of conduct in one of your sex , as you to convict me of error in this affair . '' Emily blushed , and was silent ; she now perceived too clearly , that she had hoped an impossibility , for , where no mistake had been committed no conviction could follow ; and it was evident , that Montoni 's conduct had not been the consequence of mistake , but of design . Anxious to escape from conversation , which was both afflicting and humiliating to her , she soon returned to the deck , and resumed her station near the stern , without apprehension of cold , for no vapour rose from the water , and the air was dry and tranquil ; here , at least , the benevolence of nature allowed her the quiet which Montoni had denied her elsewhere . It was now past midnight . The stars shed a kind of twilight , that served to show the dark outline of the shores on either hand , and the grey surface of the river ; till the moon rose from behind a high palm grove , and shed her mellow lustre over the scene . The vessel glided smoothly on : amid the stillness of the hour Emily heard , now and then , the solitary voice of the barge-men on the bank , as they spoke to their horses ; while , from a remote part of the vessel , with melancholy song , The sailor sooth 'd , Beneath the trembling moon , the midnight wave . Emily , meanwhile , anticipated her reception by Mons , and Madame Quesnel ; considered what she should say on the subject of La Vallée ; and then , to withhold her mind from more anxious topics , tried to amuse herself by discriminating the faint-drawn features of the landscape , reposing in the moonlight .