Why should her father speak to her so?
Why could he not tell her if her mother were better?
She sat in her little rocking-chair beside the window, and looked out at the night.

She was conscious of a terrible sensation which seemed to have its starting-point at her heart, but which pervaded her whole body, her whole consciousness.
She was conscious of such misery, such grief, that it was like a weight and a pain.

She knew now that her mother was no better, that she might even die.

She heard no more of the cries and moans, and somehow now, the absence of them seemed harder to bear than they themselves had been.

Suddenly she heard her mother's door open.