The theme was Love and Death.

One might have supposed, from his occasional mutterings at the pace regulated by the postillion, that he was burning with anxiety to catch the flying coach.

He had forgotten it: forgotten that he was giving chase to anything.

A pair of wondering feminine eyes pursued him, and made him fret for the miles to throw a thicker veil between him and them.

The serious level brows of Rose haunted the poor youth; and reflecting whither he was tending, and to what sight, he had shadowy touches of the holiness there is in death, from which came a conflict between the imaged phantoms of his father and of Rose, and he sided against his love with some bitterness.