Juliette was kneeling by the other bedside, a slender, rigid little figure in a white night-robe, striving to collect her whirling thoughts sufficiently to say her prayers. When she rose up, Adelaide asked her drowsily:
"Do you pray always?... And what do you pray for? And for whom, tell me, you secret little thing!"
The low answer came:
"I pray for the living, Madame, and for the departed.... For my father and—others who are dear to me; for myself and for my grandmother's soul!"
"For your mother?" Adelaide queried curiously.
"I pray that my mother may repent and be forgiven!"
"Ah-h!" Adelaide's inflection was sleepily scornful. "So you think her a terrible sinner, eh, Mademoiselle?"
The white-robed figure palpably shuddered, yet the answer came unfalteringly:
"It is not for me to judge—you, Madame!"
The clean riposte pierced the consciousness that had been dulled by the opiate. There was a dreadful silence, during which the girl could hear her own heart drumming, and through the noise it made, the hiss of her mother's sharply intaken and expelled breath. Then Adelaide shrugged, saying in a tone of drowsy irony: