She was sleeping peacefully, her thin hands folded on her breast, and he drew a sigh of relief.
"I am glad she's able to sleep," he said, and stole back to the pantry.
He studied its sparse supplies with care. There was not much to do with, but he boiled some eggs and made coffee very quietly, with intent to let his mother sleep as long as she could. He found himself less savage than the night before.
"I can't leave till she wakes," he said to himself, "but I'm going, all the same."
In order to pass the time of waiting he went down to the foot of the stairs to find the morning paper. He opened it with apprehension, but breathed a sigh of relief upon finding no further "scare heads" of himself. The only reference to his mother came in the midst of an editorial advocating the cleaning out of all the healers, palmists, fortune-tellers, and mediums in the city. With lofty virtue the writer went on to say that the Star had refused to advertise the business of these people, no matter what the pecuniary reward, and that it purposed a continuous campaign. "We intend to pursue all such women as Mrs. Ollnee, who fasten upon their credulous dupes like leeches," he declared.
As Victor read this paragraph he caught again the violence of contrast between the woman pictured by the pen of the editor and the pale, sweet, mild-voiced little woman who was his mother. It would have been funny had it not been so serious and so personal. Furthermore, the paragraph strengthened him in his determination to leave the city, and he still hoped to be able to persuade his mother to go with him.
At eight o'clock he once more tiptoed in to see if she still slept, and finding her in the same position his heart softened with pity. "She must have been completely tired out, poor little mother! I'm afraid what I said to her worried her."
After another hour of impatient waiting he again entered her room and studied her more intently. There was something suggestive of death in the folded hands and he could detect no breathing. Her face was as pale as that of a corpse, and his blood chilled a little as he approached her. He called to her at last, but she did not stir.
Stepping to her bedside, he laid his palm upon her wrist. It was cold as ice, and he started back filled with fear. "Mother! mother! Are you ill?" he called. She gave no sign of life.
For a long time he stood there, rigid with fear, not knowing what to do. He knew no one in all the city upon whom he could call save Mrs. Joyce and Leo, and he did not know their street or number. He felt himself utterly alone, helpless, ignorant as a babe, and in the presence of death.