He awoke to find himself lying under a blanket in his own former bedroom, whither, he learned later, Dorah and Reb Monash had lifted him. He stared unseeing for some time into the blotched ceiling, then the words came tolling against his ears, "The Last Morning! The Last Morning!" He did not at once seize the meaning of the phrase. He knew merely that this morning was to be an ending of things. But when the phrase became particularized, _whose_ last morning had dawned, slowly he rose from his bed as a doomed man for the gallows. It was morning. The blind had been drawn, but they had left the gas feebly talking in the incandescent burner. Shadowy people had already gathered in the lobby and there were several neighbours in the parlour. Reb Monash was standing over her bed listening to the faint words she was endeavouring to shape. A flicker of jealousy touched the boy's heart. "Monash," she said, "it is _shabbos_, yes?" "Yah, Chayah, the Holy Day!" "Ah, _gutt, gutt_!" She could say no more. He observed how the neighbours would make way to give each other the privilege of being within the dying woman's room for some minutes. Death seemed to be in the room with all the actuality of physical presence. He seemed to be standing over Philip's head leaning dark branches about him like a tree.... No, he would not let the futile gas burn there while the sun, while even the warped sun of Doomington, shone into the room! What were all these people doing here, treading softly in and out? Did they hope that she would carry a brief for their souls into that country whither she was shortly adventuring? The clock! the clock! How it ticked relentlessly on the mantelpiece, a large, round alarm clock with a pale face! Channah was whispering. "I think she wants you!" He brought his ear close to his mother's lips. "_Shabbos_," she said, "the Holy Day! Before _shabbos_ goes, I am no more, son mine!" Should he say--the words were almost on his lips--"Mother, mother! The sun's shining! You will be strong yet! That dress of satin I always wanted to buy you, I will buy you soon. You will sit in the parlour like a queen, only making cakes sometimes, for _yom tov_! I will take your arm and we will go out into the green fields. Birds, mother! And blossom on the trees! Even yet, mother, even yet!" There was no time for lovely, false hopes. He said not a word, but she knew how he was closer than he had been since the days when he lay, a fluttering lifeless life, under her heart. The clock! The clock! There was a whispering, a treading. Some one had arrived. They bent to his ear and said, "It's from the _shool_. Some one has come to say the 'Hear, O Israel!' Let him be near!" Channah took him by the arm. "Come to the door. Just while the man's there! Come!"