daytime. . . . 'Stop,' she whispered. 'please; do not torture me now. You will know some time. . . .' She was silent again. Her hands were cold and her pulse beat fast and unevenly. I gave her some medicine and moved a little away so as not to disturb her. She did not get up the whole day. She lay perfectly still and quiet, and now and then heaving a deep sigh, and timorously opening her eyes. Every one in the house was at a loss what to think.
VIII
Towards night my mother became a little feverish, and she sent me away. I did not, however, go to my own room, but lay down in the next room on the sofa. Every quarter of an hour I got up, went on tiptoe to the door, listened. . . . Everything was still — but my mother hardly slept that night. When I went in to her early in the morning, her face looked hollow, her eyes shone with an unnatural brightness. In the course of the day she got a little better, but towards evening the feverishness increased again. Up till then she had been obstinately silent, but all of a sudden she began talking in a hurried broken voice. She
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