"Will you not help me?" She pleaded. "Dieu! mon Dieu,—will you not—help—me—?"
Her kneeling figure swayed a bit.
"You will not hear," she whimpered. "You will—not—hear—"
For a moment longer she waited in the tense silence. And then she rose stiffly to her feet. Her eyes riveted themselves upon a little pool of yellow light that lay in the center of the table under the lamp. The palms of her hands struck noiselessly together.
Very slowly, she went through the curtain and into the kitchen.
It was a scrupulously clean room. A stove stood in one corner. Against the wall hung a row of pots and pans that caught the light from the swinging lamp in brilliant, burnished patches.
Angele and Jean sat near to each other at the center table. Their heads were close. Their cautious whispering stopped abruptly as she came toward them.
The woman sat down with the girl on one side of her and the boy on the other. She was very silent. There was only one thing she could have said. She did not want to say it.
Mechanically she tried to eat. She watched her hands moving upward from her plate with a sort of dazed interest. It was only when she tried to swallow that she realized how each mouthful of food choked her.
The one question came to her lips again and again.