"Ah, no, Nan Byrne, this is something I could never let pass. And all the long days I saw you contriving here at the machine, and you so anxious and attentive, sure I used to be grinning to myself at the thoughts of the bloody fine laugh I'd be having at you some day. I used, that's God's truth!"
It seemed terrible to be told the story of this hate that had been so well hidden, now springing up before her in a withering blast of ingratitude and being borne to her understanding upon such quiet words.... She sighed ever so slightly, and her lips moved gently in the aspiration of a prayer.
"O Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" was what she said.
The pious ejaculation seemed to leap at once towards the accomplishment of a definite purpose, for immediately it had the effect of moving Marse Prendergast towards the door.
"I'm going now!"
The words were spoken with an even more chilling quietness. Mrs. Brennan made a noise as if to articulate something, but no words would come from her.
"And let you not be thinking that 'tis only this little thing I'm going to tell him, for there's a whole lot more. I'm going to tell him all I know, all that I didn't tell you through the length of the years, though, God knows, it has been often burning me to tell.... You think, I suppose, as clever as you are, that the child was buried in the garden. Well, that's not a fact, nor the color of a fact, for all I've made you afraid of it so often.... Grace Gogarty had no child of her own for Henry Shannon. Ulick Shannon is your own child that was sold be your ould mother for a few pound!"
"That's a lie for you, Marse Prendergast!"
"'Tis no lie at all I'm telling you, but the naked truth. I suppose neither of them lads, Ulick nor John, ever guessed the reason why they were so fond of one another, but that was the reason; and 'tis I used to enjoy seeing them together and I knowing it well. Isn't it curious now to say that you're the mother of a blackguard and the mother of the makings of a priest?... Mebbe you'd give me the little bit of money now? Mebbe?"
Mrs. Brennan did not answer. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks one after the other.... Her heart had been rent by this sudden flash of information. Even the last remaining stronghold of her vanity had been swept away. That she, who had claim in her own estimation to be considered the wise woman of the valley, could not have long since guessed at the existence of a fact so intimate.... Her heart was wounded, not unto death, but immortally.... Her son! Ulick Shannon her son! O Mother of God!