The Count of Monte Cristo

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ascending the stairs, followed by tears and lamentations, such as
servants always give vent to when they wish to appear interested in
their master's grief. He drew back the bolt of his door, and almost
directly an old lady entered, unannounced, carrying her shawl on her
arm, and her bonnet in her hand. The white hair was thrown back from her
yellow forehead, and her eyes, already sunken by the furrows of age, now
almost disappeared beneath the eyelids swollen with grief. "Oh, sir,"
she said; "oh, sir, what a misfortune! I shall die of it; oh, yes, I
shall certainly die of it!"

And then, falling upon the chair nearest the door, she burst into a
paroxysm of sobs. The servants, standing in the doorway, not daring to
approach nearer, were looking at Noirtier's old servant, who had heard
the noise from his master's room, and run there also, remaining behind
the others. Villefort rose, and ran towards his mother-in-law, for it
was she.