The terror that had come down upon him when his father had left him seemed to-day utterly to soak through into the very heart of him.

His mother was going to die unless something or somebody saved her.

What was dying?
Going away, he had always been told, with a golden harp, to sing hymns in a foreign country.

But to-day the picture would not form so easily.

There was silence and darkness and confusion about this Death.