Here is the dream of the past scene on the night of the murder mingling with the subsequent stings of conscience—hours and days floating through her distempered imagination at the same moment—the cruel purpose, the atrocious execution—the actual presence of the fatal event, with its unrelenting determination, and guilty hope and the trembling terrors of future remorse and fear—all together—all crowding at once upon the mind, in those capricious fragments of reality which unite with such terrible probability in the solemn hour of sleep. The “damned spot” is the first—the predominant and blasting thought; the horrible fixed phantom preying on her mind. Wash as she may, the red trace will not out. She has continued in this “accustomed action with her” a quarter of an hour at a time—striving and striving—rubbing and rubbing—and dwelling upon the hour of her guilt, till the constant contemplation of it has driven her mad. Amid all the charms, the long-promised, dearly-prized charms of royalty—with the golden round at length upon her brow—at all hours of the day and night—in the sunshine and in the darkness—in solitude and at the banquet—this spot, this “damned spot,” is there—always there—and so she is destined to go on, vainly rubbing and rubbing, to her grave. One, two. She hears over again the clock telling the hour of that dreadful night. Why, then ’tis time to do’t. Here is the _habit_ of sin. She is committing the deed over again. Hell is murky! In her imagination her ghastly, staggering lord is at her side uttering this exclamation in fear, which she repeats in scorn. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? But as she speaks, the deed is already long done. She is still with the trembling, spiritless, haggard partner of her crime, and seems to address him with one of those unnatural sickly flickerings of consolation and peace which only render more visible the surrounding despair. What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account. A sad comfort at the best, but ominously significant on the lips of this woman, at the very moment when the springs of her life are giving way under the mere load of guilty recollection. But instantly she is transported back again to the fatal hour. She is gazing upon the pale face of the butchered old king, weltering in gore. She sees all things stained, dripping, flooded—and with that kind of awful composure which one feels often in a great crisis, she pauses to make a remark of wonder: Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? These sudden transportations from place to place—from time to time—to and fro—backward and forward—is a perfect representation of the shifting changes, the starts and fragments of a rolling dream. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?—What! will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord; no more o’ that;—you will mar all with this starting.