This time no friendly potion had helped her to sleep through the noise
of the thunderstorm. Soon after the attack of convulsions the agitated,
feeble sufferer had started up in terror at the first loud peal of
thunder. Fright followed fright, and when the leech came voluntarily to
enquire for her, he found a dying woman.

The bleeding restored her to consciousness for a short time, and she
evidently recognised her husband and her children. To the former she
gave a grateful, tender glance of love, to Els an affectionate,
confidential gesture, but Eva, her pride and joy, whom the past night had
rendered a child of sorrow, claimed her attention most fully.

Her kind, gentle eyes rested a long time upon her: then she looked toward
her husband as if beseeching him to cherish this child with special
tenderness in his heart; and when he returned the glance with another, in
which all the wealth of his great and loyal love shone through his tears,
her fever-flushed features brightened. Memories of the spring of her
love seemed to irradiate her last moments and, as her eyes again rested
on Eva, her lips once more smiled with the bewitching expression, once
her husband's delight, which had long deserted them.

It seemed during this time as if she had forgotten the faithful nurse who
for years had willingly sacrificed the pleasures of her days and the
sleep of her nights, to lavish upon the child of her anxiety all that her
mother-heart still contained, which was naught save love.

Els doubtless noticed it, but with no bitter or sorrowful thoughts. She
and the beloved dying woman understood one another. Each knew what she
was to the other. Her mother need not doubt, nor did she, that, whatever