m.

A short time after receiving this last letter Angela was reading the
news from an evening paper to Madame Bernard, translating the
paragraphs offhand into French, by force of habit, because her old
governess had often made her do it for practice.

Suddenly her eyes became fixed, the colour left her face, and she
dropped the newspaper with a short, loud cry, falling back in her
chair at the same moment.

Madame Bernard snatched up the sheet and glanced at the place where
the girl had last been reading.

The expedition had fallen in with hostile natives a week after
starting and had been massacred to a man. The names of the dead were
given, and Giovanni's was the second on the list.

CHAPTER VI

Angela lived for weeks in a state of sleepless apathy, so far as her
companion could see. She scarcely spoke, and ate barely enough to keep
herself alive. She seemed not to sleep at all, for two or three times
during every night Madame Bernard got up and came to her room, and she
always found her lying quite motionless on her back, her eyes wide
open and staring at the tasteless little pattern of flowers stencilled
in colours on the ceiling. Once Madame Bernard proposed to take away
the night-light that burned in a cup on the floor, but Angela shook
her head almost energetically. She never opened a book either, nor
occupied herself in any way, but seemed content to sit still all day
and to lie awake all night, never complaining, and never even speaking
unless her friend asked her a direct question. Every morning at
sunrise she put on her hat and went to the ancient church of San
Crisogono, which is served by Trinitarian monks. Sometimes Madame
Bernard went with her, but more often she was accompanied by the one
woman-servant who cooked and did the housework.

The unhappy girl found neither consolation nor hope in the daily
service; she went to it because, somehow, it seemed to be the only
thing she could do for the dead. She knelt down every day on the same
spot, and remained kneeling till after the priest and the acolyte were
gone; she took her missal with her, but never looked at it, and her
lips never moved in prayer; she felt no impulse to go to confession,
nor any devotional craving for the Communion. The mass was a mere form
to her, but she attended it regularly, as if she expected that much of
herself and would not do less than the least that seemed to be her
duty. That was all. Prayer in any form of wo