She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh.

“Now,” she said, “is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he made atonement to you⁠—with his life! Do you hear?⁠—His life!”

Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare.

“Aye!” cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, “look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!” striking the scar, “at your dead child’s handiwork!”

The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to my heart. Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain.