heard before. It did not seem possible that her mother, that anything
human, in fact, was making such a noise, and yet no animal could have
made it, for it was articulate. Her mother was in fact both praying
and repeating verses of Scripture, in that awful voice which was no
longer capable of normal speech, but was compounded of wail and
groan. 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. She caught
sight of a bottle of cologne on the dresser, one which she had given
her mother herself the Christmas before; she had bought it out of her
little savings of pocket-money. Maria went unsteadily over to the
dresser and got the cologne. She also opened a drawer and got out a
clean handkerchief. She became conscious that her mother's eyes were
upon her, even although she never ceased for a moment her cries of
agony.

"What--r you do--g?" asked her mother, in her dreadful voice.

"Just getting some cologne to put on your head, to make you feel
better, mother," replied Maria, piteously. She thought she must
answer her mother's question in spite of her father's prohibition.

Her mother seemed to take no further notice; she turned her face to
the wall. "Have--mercy upon me, O Lord, according to Thy loving
kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies," she