‘Anybody’s a fool that tries to do God’s work that way,’ she answered.
‘You say you are going to hell, Norah.’
‘And so I am, but not for ruinin’ a child that’s got hysterics. I can face the divvle without havin’ that on my conscience. And I’ll tell ye somethin’ that’ll maybe turn out useful when ye grow older. Ye think because I folly a callin’ that no decent woman can think of and because ye know that I drink, that I’ve no pride of me own. Ye’re mistaken, Paul Armstrong. If ye were ten years older, and I me own woman, I’d set these in your face. D’ye mind me now?’ She shook her hands before her for an instant, and withdrew them under her shawl again. ‘Ye mean well, I think, but ye’re just in-sultin’ past bearin’, an’ so you are! Would I live on the ‘arnin’s of a child? Oh, Mary, Mary, Mother o’ God!’ ‘she burst out, ‘look down an’ see how I’m trodden in the mud. Go away, go away; go away, I tell ye! I know what I am. Right well I know what I am. But d’ye think I’m that?
Black misery on your—— No. Ill not curse ye, for I believe ye meant well. But if ye’re not gone, I’ve a scissors here, an’ I’ll do meself a mischief.’
The outburst overwhelmed him. The man of the world who could have stood unmoved against it would have needs been brave and cool. The torrent of her passion swept him like a straw.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he stammered; ‘I beg your pardon with all my heart and soul.’
‘Go!’ she said.
He obeyed her, and the episode of Norah MacMulty came to a close.
‘Paul,’ said the Solitary, waking for a moment from the dream in which these old things acted themselves again before him, ‘you were always a fool, but the folly of that time was better than to-day’s.’