"No better! No change!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, my God! must I lose him? Must he die?"
He was my unconscious rival; his little life stood between me and all I valued most, yet I knelt and prayed God, as I had never prayed before, that He would spare him. I would have given Crown Anstey twice over for that life; but it was not to be.
"Do not disturb him with cries," said the doctor to his mother; "he has not long to live."
She knelt by his side in silence, her face colorless as that of a marble statue, the very picture of desolation, the very image of woe.
So for some minutes we sat; the little breath grew fainter and more feeble, the gray shadow deepened on the lovely face.
"Mamma!" he cried. "I see! I see!"
She bent over him, and at that moment he died.
I can never forget it—the wild, bitter anguish of that unhappy woman, how she wept, how she tore her hair, how she called her child back by every tender name a mother's love could invent.
It was better, the doctor said, that the first paroxysm of grief should have full vent. All attempts at comfort and consolation were unavailing. I raised her from the ground, and when she saw my face she cried:
"Oh, Edgar! Edgar! it is my just punishment!"