CHAPTER LXIX.
MADAME DE MARKE’s DEATH-BED.
Madame de Marke lay alone in her den, more emaciated and weaker by far than she was when Jane Kelly abandoned her. For a little time she had found strength to creep about and procure food for herself, but some new injury to her bruised limb had followed the exertion, and she was cast back into her miserable bed more desolate than before. Day by day the inflammation burned and burrowed into her wounded limb, and all night long the poor woman lay muttering and raving for something to moisten her hot lips, “Water, water, water.” This was her plaint night and morning. With gold and jewels concealed in the crevices and hiding-places all around her, she lay like the rich man in torment, calling for a drop of water, which even the beggar obtains without stint, but for which she was calling always in vain.
At last the fever ceased, the anguish went out from her limb, and the miserable old woman lay quiet for the first time in days. The fever had kept up her strength till now, and she had not felt the need of food; nor did she even yet. A dumb feeling of content stole over her; she wanted nothing. The silence of her chickens troubled her a little, but she had no strength to rise up and see to them. She thought of the cat, and wondered where she was, and why she did not come up to the bed and share the supreme content of that sudden freedom from pain. She thought of her son, with a gush of human tenderness, and resolved that, the next day, when she should be quite well, to gather up all her gold and go with it into some more seemly place, where she would summon him to her presence.
But all these thoughts and resolves were vague and dreamy. She felt like one dropping into a sweet sleep, the very twilight of which was delicious. She lay thus, in the dim, mean room, for it was lighted only by a sash in the door; and the sunset that came through the red curtains had the effect of a dull, lurid flame, which could not penetrate to the bed, and filled the rest of the apartment with a fearful light.
All at once she heard footsteps without, and turning her eyes, with a gleam of their original ferocity, toward the door, it opened, and she saw her son enter the room. She laughed a low, feeble laugh, and strove to hold out her hand; but it fell numbly and heavily on the squalid bed, while the laugh died in a faint chuckle within her working throat.
“Madame, Madame!” cried the young man, gazing around the room, at first bewildered by the imperfect light, and filled with repulsion by the squalid objects around him. “Madame—mother!”
A murmur rose from the bed, which struck to his heart, sweeping all the disgust away. The affection of a warm nature, ardent and forgiving, gushed forth even in that spot.
“Mother. Oh! my poor mother.”
She looked up, and strove to speak; but a pitiful whimper alone passed through the white lips.
“Mother! mother! What have I done? How could I leave you to this?”