But Stella was not reassured. And at night the thought of her pupil troubled her and would not let her sleep. Sometimes she would get up and go to the door of Anna's room. There was always a light burning within. Two or three times she had entered; Anna lay motionless on her bed, with her eyes closed. Then Stella had put out the light.
"Why do you leave your light burning at night?" she asked Anna one day.
"Because I am afraid of the dark."
Thereupon Stella had prepared a little lamp for her, with a shade of opalescent crystal that softened its light; and almost every night Stella would go to Anna's room to see whether she was asleep. Her pale face in the green rays of the lamp had the semblance of a wreck slumbering at the bottom of the sea. Sometimes, hearing Stella's footsteps, Anna opened her eyes and smiled upon her; then relapsed into her stupor. For it was not sleep; it was a sort of bodily and mental torpor that kept her motionless and speechless. Stella returned to her own room, in no wise reassured. And what most worried this good woman was the long visit which Anna made every day to the room of her dead mother.
The villa was delightful during these first weeks of the summer, with its fragrant garden, its big, airy, cheerful, luxurious apartments, its splendid view of the sea. In the cool and perfumed mornings, in the evenings that palpitated with starlight, every window and balcony had its special fascination. But Anna saw and felt nothing of all this; her mother's room alone attracted her. There she passed long hours kneeling beside the bed, or seated at a window, silent, gazing off at the sea, with a white expressionless face. Sometimes Stella came to the door and called:
"Anna—Anna!"
"Here I am," she answered, starting out of her reverie.
"Come away; it is late."
"I am coming."
But she did not move; it was necessary to call her again and again.