Every sentence seemed to begin with a groan, and ended with a long-drawn-out wail.

Maria went close to her mother's bed and stood looking at her.

Her poor little face would have torn her mother's heart with its piteous terror, had she herself not been in such agony.
Maria did not speak.

She remembered what her father had said.

As her mother lay there, stretched out stiff and stark, almost as if she were dead, Maria glanced around the room as if for help.