Aglaia laughed bitterly.
"Listen," she replied. "My children never come here. I would not allow it. But sometimes I go down to the bank by the roadside, where the other lepers go to beg, and my husband brings them, and stands afar off, and I look at them and stretch my arms toward them. Is there any greater hell than that? When you're a mother you will know."
"But," interrupted Panayota, who had entirely forgotten her own troubles in the presence of such great sorrow, "are you not afraid for their safety, over there in Canea?"
"No, praise God! My husband is captain of a caique. He has gone to Athens and taken the two children with him. Before he went away he brought them down to see me. And the baby laughed and shouted, 'Na, mama; come here, mama!' My baby has red cheeks and curly hair, but Yanne doesn't know how to fix her hair."
She sat for some time in thought, and Panayota heard her mutter, "Na, mama; come here, mama." And later: "When my face changes I shan't go down to see them any more. I shall never let them see me like that."
Panayota went to the door and gazed at the sky through a mist of tears. What a dreadful place this was, where there was grief that not even the Virgin could assuage! A cool breeze from the sea was abroad over the land, and one star glittered like a drop of dew on a spray of lilac. Yonder were the hills to which she longed to flee—gray giants, moving toward her out of the darkness.
The whole earth was swallowed in silence, and the beautiful valley that spread out before her seemed wrapped in the slumber of peace. But alas! if she looked to the right, a few slender columns of smoke rising from Canea bore witness to the dark deeds of yester-eve and last night. Panayota's momentary joy at the coming of day forsook her at sight of that smoke. The light was cheering, but it did not help her to see any escape from her perilous position.
An hour passed away, and the sun rose. Aglaia made some coffee, which Panayota drank without revulsion. Everything about the little hut was spotlessly clean, and the stricken woman herself had not yet fallen into those careless ways which come to the leper when all pride is extinguished.
"How shall I be able to go on my journey?" asked Panayota.
"God will show a way. He has not deserted you as he has me."