Mr.Pyecroft sat silent on the foot of the bed for a space, grave but composed, gazing at a particular scale of the flaking kalsomine.

Then he remarked something about its having been a somewhat trying day and that he believed that he'd be off to bed.
When he was gone Mrs.De Peyster lay wordless, limp, all a-shiver.
Beside her sat the limp and voiceless Matilda, gasping and staring wildly.

How long Mrs.De Peyster lay in that condition she never knew.

All her faculties were reeling.

These crowding events seemed the wildest series of unrealities; seemed the frenzied, feverish phantasms of a nightmare.