up to the room she shared with Marianna. There she threw
herself on her knees beside her narrow bed and began to cry and pray.
She had to cry; she would have liked to check the tears that flowed,
she did not know why, but she could not. Was that jealousy that was
stabbing her heart like a knife? Oh, no, nobody in the world could
admire her mother as she did. She would gladly have given her
everything--only not Becker. How those two had gazed at each other.
They had [Pg 231] kept together the whole time in a remote part of the
field, always side by side as though they belonged to each other. And
her mother had laughed as though she were a young, happy girl, much
younger and much happier than she, Rosa, had ever been. Was it not
disgraceful to laugh like that when one is so old?

Rosa's lip curled, but then she felt very much ashamed of herself. How
horrid it was of her to envy her mother because she had laughed. If
only she might always laugh and be happy! Her lot would be to pray,
pray always. She would go to the Grey Sisters and nurse the sick, or to
the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. That was the only thing she wanted to
do, nothing else was worth longing for.

Husband and wife, and always united during many years, and many
children--it sounded like distant music. Rosa moved her lips more
rapidly; she would have liked to stop her ears, she fought with all her
strength against the distant music. "Jesus, my only Friend, I love Thee
above everything. Sweetest Jesus, Saviour!" she whispered fervently;
her eager eyes were full of longing as she raised them.

Rosa had never had a picture of the Saviour over her bed, nothing but a
vessel containing holy water and some consecrated palm branches, but at
that moment a picture shone on the bare wall which had never been there
before. She stared at it in a transport of joy, and her eyes grew
bigger and bigger; her lips faltered as she prayed, and she heaved a
deep sigh--there--there--Jesus Christ! How Martin Becker resembled Him
in every feature, and how He smiled at her.

The expression in the girl's face grew more and more ecstatic; it was
as though all the blood in her body had suddenly become active, as it
coursed down into [Pg 232] the tips of her toes and then up into her
hot cheeks. Rosa glowed with delight--there He was, there He was. It
was no longer the Christ Child, whom she had got leave to nurse, it was
He, He, so big and so beautiful.

"Jesus, O my Saviour!" She u