Her hands were twisting together in her lap. There was dust covering her skirt thickly.
“And fell,” he said.
She did not answer.
“Will you tell me why you came?” he asked.
“Because I was a fool”—her lips were working, her hands kept twisting over each other in her lap.
“I heard you praying,” said Raymond gently. “What brought you here to-night, Madame Blondin?”
She shook her head now, and turned her face away.
The moonlight fell on the sparse, gray hair, and the thin, drooping shoulders, and the unkempt, shabby clothing. It seemed to enfold her in an infinite sympathy all its own. And suddenly Raymond found that his eyes were wet. It did not seem so startling and incongruous a thing that she should be here at midnight in the church—at the Altar of God. And yet—and yet why had she come? Something within himself demanded in a strange wistfulness the answer to that question, as though in the answer she would answer for them both, for the two who had no right here in this sacred place unless—unless, if there were a God, that God in His own way had meant to—direct their feet into the way of peace.
“Madame Blondin”—his voice was very low, trembling with earnestness—“Madame Blondin, do you believe in God?”
Her hands stopped their nervous movements, and clasped hard one upon the other.