amless
sleep.

The next day and the next night I spent beside my mother, watching the
life ebb fast away, and thinking with grave sorrow of her past and my
future. It pained me beyond measure to see her die thus, in a garret,
without proper attendance or any but bare comforts; the existence which
had once been bright and prosperous ending in penury and gloom, such as
my mother's love and hope and self-sacrifice little deserved. Her state
grieved me sharply on my own account too, seeing that I had formed none
of those familiar relations which men of my age have commonly formed,
and which console them for the loss of parents and forbears; Nature so
ordering it, as I have taken note, that men look forward rather
than backward, and find in the ties they form with the future full
compensation for the parting strands behind them. I was alone,
poverty-stricken, and in middle life, seeing nothing before me except
danger and hardship, and these unrelieved by hope or affection. This
last adventure, too, despite all my efforts, had sunk me deeper in the
mire; by increasing my enemies and alienating from me some to whom I
might have turned at the worst. In one other respect also it had added
to my troubles not a little; for the image of mademoiselle wandering
alone and unguarded through the streets, or vainly calling on me for
help, persisted in thrusting itself on my imagination when I least
wanted it, and came even between my mother's patient face and me.

I was sitting beside Madame de Bonne a little after sunset on the
second day, the woman who attended her being absent on an errand, when
I remarked that the lamp, which had been recently lit, and stood on a
stool in the middle of the room, was burning low and needed snuffing.
I went to it softly, and while stooping over it, trying to improve the
light, heard a slow, heavy step ascending the stairs. The house was
quiet, and the sound attracted my full attention. I raised myself and
stood listening, hoping that this might be the doctor, who had not been
that day.

The footsteps passed the landing below, but at the first stair of
the next flight the person, whoever it was, stumbled, and made a
considerable noise. At that, or it might be a moment later, the step
still ascending, I heard a sudden rustling behind me, and, turning
quickly with a start, saw my mother sitting up in bed. Her eyes were
open, and she seemed fully conscious; which she had not been for days,
nor indeed s