ting by
the characteristics of the habitual drunkard, lowering and glaring at
me in her purple, bloated face. To see her heavy hands shaking at the
pillow, as they tried mechanically to arrange it; to see her stand,
alternately leering and scowling by the bedside, an incarnate blasphemy
in the sacred chamber of death, was to behold the most horrible of all
mockeries, the most impious of all profanations. No loneliness in the
presence of mortal agony could try me to the quick, as the sight of that
foul old age of degradation and debauchery, defiling the sick room, now
tried me. I determined to wait alone by the bedside till Mr. Bernard
returned.

With some difficulty, I made the wretched drunkard understand that she
might go downstairs again; and that I would call her if she was wanted.
At last, she comprehended my meaning, and slowly quitted the room. The
door closed on her; and I was left alone to watch the last moments of
the woman who had ruined me!

As I sat down near the open window, the sounds outside in the street
told of the waning of the night. There was an echo of many footsteps, a
hoarse murmur of conflicting voices, now near, now afar off. The public
houses were dispersing their drunken crowds--the crowds of a Saturday
night: it was twelve o'clock.

Through those street-sounds of fierce ribaldry and ghastly mirth,
the voice of the dying woman penetrated, speaking more slowly, more
distinctly, more terribly than it had spoken yet.

"I see him," she said, staring vacantly at me, and moving her hands
slowly to and fro in the air. "I see him! But he's a long way off; he
can't hear our secrets, and he does not suspect you as mother does.
Don't tell me that about him any more; my flesh creeps at it! What are
you looking at me in that way for? You make me feel on fire. You know
I like you, because I _must_ like you; because I can't help it. It's no
use saying hush: I tell you he can't hear us, and can't see us. He can
see nothing; you make a fool of him, and I make a fool of him. But mind!
I _will_ ride in my own carriage: you must keep things secret enough to
let me do that. I say I _will_ ride in my carriage: and I'll go where
father walks to business: I don't care if I splash him with _my_
carriage wheels! I'll be even with him for some of the passions he's
been in with me. You see how I'll go into our shop and order dresses!
(be quiet! I say he can't hear us). I'll have velvet where his sister
has silk, an