for Jenny Trewhella, madness would have to
help the signature of such an inapposite conjunction. Then, in a
pretense of reading, she began to study her husband's countenance, and
with the progress of contemplation to persuade herself of his unreality.
Sometimes he would make a movement or hazard a remark, and she, waking
with a start to his existence, would ponder distastefully the rusted
neck, the hands like lizard skin, and the lack luster nails frayed by
agriculture.

The train was rocking through the flooded meads of Somerset in a
desolation of silver, and the length of the journey was already heavy
on Jenny's mind. She had not traveled so far since she was swept on to
the freedom of Glasgow and Dublin. Now, with every mile nearer to the
west, her bondage became more imminent. Trewhella loomed large in the
narrow compartment as Teignmouth was left behind. They seemed to be
traveling even beyond the sea itself, and Jenny was frightened when she
saw it lapping the permanent way as they plunged in and out of the
hot-colored Devonshire cliffs. Exeter with its many small gardens and
populated back windows cheered her, and Plymouth, gray though it was,
held a thought of London. Soon, however, they swung round the curve of
the Albert Bridge over the Tamar and out of Devon. Sadly she watched the
Hamoaze vanish.

"Cornwall at last," said Trewhella, with a sigh of satisfaction. "'Tis a
handsome place, Plymouth, but I do dearly love to leave it behind me."

The heavy November twilight caught them as the train roared through the
Bobmin valley past hillsides stained with dead bracken--like iron mold,
Jenny thought. St. Austell shone white in the aquamarine dusk, and
darkness wrapped the dreary country beyond Truro. Every station now
seemed crowded with figures, whose unfamiliar speech had a melancholy
effect upon the girls in inverse ratio to the exhilaration it produced
in Trewhella. Jenny thought how little she knew of her destination: in
fact without May's company she might as well be dead--into such an abyss
of strange gloom was she being more deeply plunged with every mile.
Trewhella, as if in reply to her thoughts, began to talk of Trewinnard.

"Next station's ours," he said. "And then there's a seven-mile drive; so
we sha'n't get home along much before half-past eight."

"Fancy, seven miles," said Jenny.

"Long seven mile, 'tis, too," he added. "And a nasty old road on a dark
night. Come, we'll set out our passels.