"Her name?" asked Sister Maria Maddelena.
"Signorina Spragg."
"Is she a foreigner?"
"It seems so. I do not know where she came from. She has lived with me for sixteen years."
"And you don't know anything about her?"
"She never talked. She did not speak much Italian."
"She has no money?"
"For three months she has not paid me anything. She hasn't any more money." Signorina Bardelli began to gesticulate. "What has all this got to do with it? She is sick. She is out of her head. She is dying. I cannot care for her and the whole house as well. I want to see Sister Annunziata."
"Sister Annunziata has just come in. She has been staying with the wife of Carducci, the butcher, who died two hours ago."
"It will not matter to Sister Annunziata. Tell her that Signora Bardelli wants to speak to her."
She was stubborn because she was thinking that she could not support the presence in her house of any of the others. They would be asking things of her and disturbing the other tenants. Besides she distrusted nuns as meddlesome creatures, only Sister Annunziata was different. She told herself she was not seeking aid from the Church. She was coming for Sister Annunziata as for a friend. She would not leave until she had seen her.
"The old woman may be dying now while we're talking," persisted the janitress, and then as if to intimidate Sister Maria Maddelena she added threateningly, "Without absolution, without the last
