I looked on her face, which was
growing strangely calm and white. She was dead, and it came upon me that
she who had loved and suffered most for me, and without a reproach, was
never more to look upon me again or speak words of comfort and aid to my
ears, so often unheeding. At that moment, looking through scalding tears at
her holy face, and afterwards when I heard the grave clods falling with
their terrible sound upon her coffin lid, I swore that I would keep my
promise, no matter what the temptation to break it might be. She would not
be here to see my triumph, but I would conquer for her memory's sake, and
all would be well. I swore by earth, sea, and sky, never, never to break
the promise made to her in the moment of her dying. That promise I broke
within two months from the day it was solemnized by my mother's death. I
shudder still, remembering the agony of that fall. Broken, oh God!--the
promise has been broken, is what first entered my mind. Never before had I
suffered as I then suffered.
My wild revel was protracted for days out of dread of the awful sorrow and
remorse that I knew must surely come on my getting sober.
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