‘Arrah, what are ye sayin’ at all?’ says she. ‘D’ye mane to tell me that Denis knew ye were come back, and niver give me tale or todin’s of it?’
‘That is altogether beside the question. The thing is——’
‘Faix, the raal thing is this,’ says Mrs. Denis, ‘that I’ll break ivery bone in that thraitor’s skin the next time I see him! Why,’ says she, squaring her arms and growing so wrathful that the questionable cap on the top of her head begins to quiver, ‘sixpence would have brought any boy down from Dublin wid the news of yer return, and’—with a truly noble declaration of an innate dishonesty—‘I could thin have’—she stops herself, happily, at the last moment—‘made mesilf clane to meet ye,’ says she.
Wyndham, who is sufficiently Irish himself to put in the broken paragraph, smiles coldly.
‘I am not going to discuss Denis with you,’ says he. ‘What I want to know is why these gates are locked.’
‘Well, sir, there was this: when the young lady came she was that upset wid bad thratement of wan sort or another that she seemed to be tremblin’ all over. But whin I questioned her as to what ailed her, not a word could I git out of her. I put her to bed, an’ she just clung to the wall like, turnin’ an’ twistin’ her purty head, an’ always keepin’ away from me, an’ refusin’ the tay even, till the night came down upon us. Ye will remimber, sir, that it was in the airly mornin’ that Denis——’ At this word she breaks off, and grows again intensely angry.
‘That varmint,’ says she, ‘what did he mane by not tellin’ me? Wait till I get me hands on him!’
‘Yes, the early morning,’ says Wyndham, bringing her back somewhat impatiently to the place where she had broken off.
‘Well, yes, sir. I beg yer pardon. She come in the airly mornin, an’ I could see at once that she was very sad at her heart, an’ so I just tuk her in as I tell ye, for Denis, though a divil all out in most ways’—here again a most ominous frown settles on her forehead—‘is still a man to be depended on where a woman is concerned. And so I tuk her in to oblige ye, sir.’
‘To oblige me!’ says Wyndham.