In the fast fading light he saw aunt Dide stretched, rigid and seemingly lifeless, upon her bed.

Her wretched frame, attacked by neurosis from the hour of birth, was at length laid prostrate by a supreme shock.

Her nerves had so to say consumed her blood.

Moreover some cruel grief seemed to have suddenly accelerated her slow wasting-away.

Her pale nun-like face, drawn and pinched by a life of gloom and cloister-like self-denial, was now stained with red blotches.