Closing his eyes to die, he saw in the darkness a pale face, hands that were deftly weaving delicate laces, and before night should descend forever upon his eyelids, he moaned a childish cry: "_Mama_!...

_Mama_!..." Three months afterward upon arriving at Barcelona, he found his mother just as he had seen her during his death-agony on the Portuguese coast....

Some fishermen had picked him up just as his life was ebbing away.

During his stay in the hospital he wrote many times in a light and confident tone to Dona Cristina, pretending that he was detained by important business in Lisbon.
Upon seeing him enter his home, the good lady dropped her eternal lace-work, turned pale and greeted him with tremulous hands and troubled eyes.

She must have known the truth; and if she did not know it, her motherly instinct told her when she saw Ulysses convalescent, emaciated, hovering between courageous effort and physical breakdown, just like the brave who come out of the torture chamber.
"Oh, my son!...