No one was moving; not a sound was heard except the loud breathing of the inmates, who, their wonted rest having been interrupted by this melancholy interlude, had buried their pains and anxieties in sleep.
I looked towards the bed where the sufferer lay whose sad fate had so attracted my attention and elicited my sympathies a few hours before.
His mother was no longer present.

His moans were no longer heard.

His form seemed extended motionless on the bed, and his head reposed as usual on the pillow.

But I was startled at perceiving him staring fixedly at me with eyes preternaturally large, and of a cold, glassy, ghastly appearance! I closed my own eyes and turned my head away, while a tremor shook very nerve.

Was this an illusion?
Was I laboring under the effects of a dream?
Or had my imagination conjured up a spectre?
I looked again.