Hours passed on. In the gloom of midnight, the girl awoke from a disturbed and unrefreshing slumber. She was suffering from acute pain, and in the almost total darkness which pervaded the apartment, raised her hand to her mother's face. 'Mother,' said she, in faltering accents, 'are you here?'
'No, mother,--I am sick,--sick unto death! There is a canker at my heart,--my blood grows cold,--the torpor of mortality is stealing upon me!'
'In the morning, my dear, we shall be better provided for. Bless Heaven, there is still one place which, thanks to the benevolent, will afford us sustenance and shelter.'
'Do not thank Heaven, mother: you and I are outcasts from that place of peace and rest. We have spurned Providence from our hearts, and need not now call it to our aid. Wretches, wretches that we are!'
'Mother, there is a weight of woe upon my breast, that sinks me to the earth. My brief career of folly is almost at an end. I have erred,--oh God! fatally erred,--and the consciousness of my wickedness now overwhelms me. I will not reproach you, mother, for laying the snare by which I fell,--for enticing me from the house of virtue,--the home of my heart-broken father,--to the house of infamy and death: but oh, I implore you, repent: be warned, and let penitence be the business of your days.'
The hardened heart of the mother melted at this touching appeal, and she answered with a half-stifled sigh:
'Promise me then, ere I die, that you will abandon your ways of iniquity, and endeavor to make peace with Heaven.'
'I do,--I do! But, alas my child, what hope is there for me?'
The last word was inaudible. A few respirations, at long intervals, were heard, and the penitent girl sunk into the quiet slumber of death. Still did the mother remain in her seat, with a heart harrowed by the smitings of an awakened conscience. Until the glare of daylight was visible through the crevices of the door, and the noise of the foot passengers and the rumbling of vehicles in the street had aroused the occupants of the cellar, she continued motionless, pressing to her bosom the lifeless form of her injured child. When addressed by the colored woman, she answered with an idiot stare. Sensibility had fled,--the energies of her mind had relaxed, and reason deserted its throne. The awful incidents of that night had prostrated her intellect, and she was conveyed from the gloomy place, A MANIAC!