"Oscar," she said, staggering towards her bed, "do you want to kill your mother?
After all the cautions I gave you this morning--" She did not end her sentence, for she fainted from distress of mind.
When she came to herself she heard her husband saying to Oscar, as he shook him by the arm:-- "Will you answer me ?" "Go to bed, monsieur," she said to her son.

"Let him alone, Monsieur Clapart.

Don't drive him out of his senses; he is frightfully changed." Oscar did not hear his mother's last words; he had slipped away to bed the instant that he got the order.
Those who remember their youth will not be surprised to learn that after a day so filled with events and emotions, Oscar, in spite of the enormity of his offences, slept the sleep of the just.

The next day he did not find the world so changed as he thought it; he was surprised to be very hungry,--he who the night before had regarded himself as unworthy to live.

He had only suffered mentally.