All the morning Lord Ashbridge had waited there too, but since there was no change he had gone away, saying that he would return again later, and asking to be telephoned for if his wife regained consciousness.

So, but for the nurse and the occasional visits of the doctor, Michael was alone with his mother.
In this long period of inactive waiting, when there was nothing to be done, Michael did not seem to himself to be feeling very vividly, and but for one desire, namely, that before the end his mother would come back to him, even if only for a moment, his mind felt drugged and stupefied.

Sometimes for a little it would sluggishly turn over thoughts about his father, wondering with a sort of blunt, remote contempt how it was possible for him not to be here too; but, except for the one great longing that his mother should cleave to him once more in conscious mind, he observed rather than felt.

The thought of Sylvia even was dim.
He knew that she was somewhere in the world, but she had become for the present like some picture painted in his mind, without reality.

Dim, too, was the tension of those last days.