Nor were his feelings ameliorated by the journey, to remove the tediousness of which, at that slow time, the passengers were obliged to talk even against sheer Scotch taciturnity. He sat and heard, whether he would or not, the account of one who was going to bring home a wife; of another who had been away for ten years, and who was to be met at the coach-door by one who was dying to clasp him in her arms. All which were to him as sounds in another world wide apart from that one occupied by him, where he was, as he could not but think, the one solitary inhabitant, with one dead companion by his side. By and by, as the conversation flagged, he fell into that species of monomania where the brooding spirit, doomed to bear a shock, conjures up and holds before its view the principal feature of a tragedy. That feature was the image of his Jean’s face. It was paler than the palest of corpses, to suit the condition of the disease of which she had died. The lips were tinged with the blood of the fatal hemorrhage. The eyes were blank and staring, as if filled with the surprise and terror of the sudden attack. Over all, the fixedness of the muscles,--the contrast of death to the versatile movements, which were obedient to the laugh of pleasure when he last drew indescribable joy from the changes of her humour. No effort could relieve him from that one haunting image. The conversation of the party seemed to render it more steadfast--more bright--more harrowing. Nor when he tried to realise his feelings, in the personal encounter of facing the reality, could he find in himself any promise of a power to enable him to bear up against the terrible sight. It seemed to him, as the coach moved slowly on, as if he were being dragged towards a scaffold draped in black, where he was to suffer death.