"Look!" she cried, with a fierce sob, turning her dusky and tear-stained face upon the young girl. "He has got a mother; look on her, and then dare to mourn because you have none!"
"But I have a grandfather and grandmother that love me as if I were their own child," said Julia, deeply moved by the fierce anguish thus revealed to her.
"And where are they?"
"My grandfather is here."
"Here! How came it about? What is he charged with?"
Julia's lips grew pale at the word "murder!" Even the woman seemed appalled by the mention of a crime so much more serious than she had expected.
"But you—they do not charge you with murder?" she questioned, in a subdued voice.
"No!" said Julia, innocently. "They charge me with being a witness!"
Once more a torrent of fiery imprecations burst from the lips of that miserable woman—imprecations against a law hideous almost as her own sins. Julia recoiled, aghast, beneath this profane violence. The child dropped down from the stool, and crept to her side, weeping. The woman saw this, and checked herself.
"Then you have really done nothing?"