The Countess awoke. She was again in pain, and her voice was now different.
"Roma! Is that you?"
"Yes, aunt."
"Why are you sitting in the darkness? I have a horror of darkness. You know that quite well."
Roma turned on the lights.
"Have I been speaking? What have I been saying?"
Roma tried to prevaricate.
"You are telling me a falsehood. You know you are. You gave me that drug to make me tell you my secrets. But I know what I told you and it was all a lie. You needn't think because you've been listening.... It was a lie, I tell you...."
The Sister came back at that moment, and Roma went to her room. She did not write her usual letter to David Rossi that night. Instead of doing so, she knelt by Elena's little Madonna, which she had set up on a table by her bed.
Her own secret was troubling her. She had wanted to take it to some one, some woman, who would listen to her and comfort her. She had no mother, and her tears had begun to fall.