he worst of it was, that when he had closed his eyes for a little time,
the scene in the wood always came back to him with terrible
distinctness, or else there rose up before his eyes a picture of that
darkened room, with Richard's white face upon the pillow and his
mother's dark form and outstretched hand. These were the memories that
would not let him sleep at night or take his ease in the world by day.
He could not forget the past.

There was another passenger on the boat who passed and repassed Brian
several times, and looked at him with curious attention. Brian's face
was one which was always apt to excite interest. It had grown thin and
pallid during the past fortnight; the eyes were set in deep hollows, and
wore a painfully sad expression. He looked as if he had passed through
some period of illness or sorrow of which the traces could never be
wholly obliterated. There was a pathetic hopelessness in his face which
was somewhat remarkable in so young a man.

The passenger who regarded him with so much interest was also a young
man, not more than Brian's own age, but apparently not an Englishman. He
spoke English a little, though with a foreign accent, but his French was
remarkably good and pure. He stopped short at last in front of Brian and
eyed him attentively, evidently believing that the young man was asleep.
But Brian was not asleep; he knew that the regular footstep of his
travelling companion had ceased, and was hardly surprised, when he
opened his eyes, to find the Frenchman--if such he were--standing before
him.

Brian looked at him attentively for a moment, and recognised the fact
that the young foreigner wore an ecclesiastical habit, a black _soutane_
or cassock, such as is worn in Roman Catholic seminaries, not
necessarily denoting that the person who wears it has taken priest's
vows upon him. Brian was not sufficiently well versed in the subject to
know what grade was signified by the dress of the young ecclesiastic,
but he conjectured (chiefly from its plainness and extreme shabbiness)
that it was not a very high one. The young man's face pleased him. It
was intellectual and refined in contour, rather of the ascetic type;
with that faint redness about the heavy eyelids which suggests an
insufficiency of sleep or a too great amount of study; large,
penetrating, dark eyes, underneath a broad, white brow; a firm mouth and
chin. There was something about his face which seemed vaguely familiar
to Brian