Her voice was so broken with maternal agony that Carmela's tears fell, overcome by infinite pity. Now they were almost alone in the court.
'Why do you come to hear this lottery drawn?' Annarella asked, suddenly enraged against all those that play.
'What am I to do?' said the other in her sweet, broken voice. 'You know I would like to see you all happy, mother, and you, Gaetano, your babies, and my lover Raffaele—and somebody else. You know your cross is mine, that I have not an hour's peace thinking of what you suffer. So all that is over of my earnings I play: the Lord must bless me some day or other. I must get a terno then; then I'll give it all to you.'
'Poor sister!' said Annarella, with melancholy tenderness.
'That day must come—it must,' she whispered passionately, as if speaking to herself, as if she already saw that happy day.
'May an angel pass and say amen,' Annarella murmured, kissing her baby's forehead. 'Where can Gaetano be?' she went on, care coming back.
'Say truly,' begged Carmela, getting down from the stone on her way off, 'you have nothing to give the children to-day?'
'Nothing,' was the answer in that feeble voice.
'Take this half-franc, take it,' said the other, pulling it out of her pocket and giving it to her.
'God reward you.'