Then, as the afternoon sunlight faded away, and a twilight hue crept over the room, with just a flickering streak of light playing on the wall opposite to her, the death-beds of her father, mother, sister, and brothers rose up before her with a vivid reality that made her tremble, and forced tears from her weary eyes.

The tears seemed a relief, and as they flowed quietly down her cheeks, and the coming shadows dispersed the visions of the living, dying, and dead faded away, a mist fell on her eyes and she slept.
Rowland, meanwhile, watched his mother.

During the twelve months that he had been a curate in a parish in one of the worst parts of London, he had seen much of the sick and the dying.

He had seen poverty, wretchedness, and sin in their most dreadful aspects, and the peace and comfort of his mother's present condition were a great contrast to the riot and squalor of many a death room into which he had sought to carry the gospel message of mercy.

Truly he felt thankful in his inmost soul that she, over whom he was watching with filial love, was ready at any moment to appear before the great Tribunal, because she 'believed and knew in whom she believed.' It was for Netta, his beloved and wayward sister, the cause of this first great family trouble, that he grieved the most, because he feared that she had entered upon that downward path that would lead her far astray from the one in which her mother had so long and happily trod.