The lights were put out in the lane. Jeannot, with
Father Francis, prayed before the shrine of the Seven Sorrows. Mere Krebs
slumbered in her rush-bottomed chair; she was old and worked hard. The
starling was awake.
Bebee rose in her bed, and looked around, as she had done when she had
asked for the moss-rosebud.
A sense of unutterable universal pain ached over all her body.
She did not see her little home, its four white walls, its lattice
shining in the moon, its wooden bowls and plates, its oaken shelf and
presses, its plain familiar things that once had been so dear,--she did
not see them; she only saw the brown woman with her arm about his throat.
She sat up in her bed and slipped her feet on to the floor; the pretty
little rosy feet that he had used to want to clothe in silken stockings.
Poor little feet! she felt a curious compassion for them; they had served
her so well, and they were so tired.
She sat up a moment with that curious dull agony, aching everywhere in
body and in brain. She kissed the rosebud once more and laid it gently
down in the wooden shoe.
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