‘Me poor boy,’ she answered, with another motion to arrange her shawl, ‘ye can’t tell me anything I don’t know.’
‘I can tell you something you’ve forgotten,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done; you’re God’s child, and while there’s life there’s hope.’
‘Ye’re not a man yet,’ said Norah MacMulty; ‘but if ever ye mean to be one, hould your tongue an’ go.’
‘I don’t mind hurting you if I can do you any good by it.’ ‘Ye can do me no good, nor yourself neither. Here’s people coming along the road, and it’s ten to one they’ll know ye. Ye’ve no right to be seen talkin’ to the likes of me at your age.’
‘I don’t care for the people,’ he answered. ‘I don’t care for anything but what I’ve got to say.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you don’t care, I’m sure I don’t. ‘Tis no odds to me what anybody thinks.’
The people who approached were strangers, two men and two women of the working class. They passed the pair without notice, talking of their own affairs.
‘I’m only two days from the hospital,’ said the girl when they were out of hearing, ‘and me legs gives way underneath me. If ‘twas not for that, I’d not stay here. Go now; I’m tired of ye.’
‘Look here,’ said Paul, with the dry husk in his throat again, ‘you don’t like your life.’
‘Faith, then,’ she answered, ‘I do not.’