The result was that, almost before he had realised that she had returned and that she was standing beside him, Murdough felt two arms about his neck, clinging tighter, tighter still, pressing about it in a convulsive, panic-stricken embrace, close and clinging as that of the very fog without, only warm, very warm, and very human; desperation in every touch of it, anger, too, but above all love—a love that could kill its object, but that would never fail it; could never entirely cease to believe in it.
‘Och, Murdough! Murdough! Murdough!’ she whispered, and her breath fanned his cheek fiercely. ‘Och, Murdough, look at me! Murdougheen, speak to me! Is there never one bit of love for me in all that big strong body of yours? Never one bit of love for your poor Grania, that’s loved you, and none but you, all her life long, ever since she was a little bit of a girsha? Sure, heart of my heart, wouldn’t I die any day in the week gladly just to please you, or any night of it for that matter either, if you asked me? and is there nothing you’d do for me in return—nothing? nothing? Arrah! say you’ll come with me to Aranmore—only say the word—say you’ll not refuse me. Sure you couldn’t, Murdough, you couldn’t, let me go out alone into the strange wild night without you? Arrah, say you couldn’t, dear; say it! ‘Deed and you needn’t say it, for I wouldn’t believe it of you, not if anyone swore it, so I wouldn’t. Och, ma slanach! ma slanach! who have I in the wide world to look to but you? My God! ’tis mad, out and out, I think I am going, for my heart feels bursting in the inside of me.’
Murdough was shocked, more than shocked, he was startled, positively scared and terrified by such an unlooked-for demonstration, such utterly unheard-of vehemence. If Grania had gone mad, he certainly had not done so, and one proof of his sanity was that he was intensely conscious of the presence of those two other men gathered round the cracked punch-bowl not far off, as well as of the presence of Shan Daly, who was probably hidden away in some obscure corner of the building. He could not see any of them certainly, and therefore presumably they could not see him. Still, they might hear; a thought which filled him with acute discomfort. Had Grania really gone mad, he asked himself; it seemed to be the only possible explanation. Lapses into drunkenness were trifles, a few other obvious slips from the path of absolute rectitude were customary, and therefore forgivable, but such conduct as this was unheard-of, was absolutely unprecedented and inconceivable! His sense of decorum was stirred to its very depths.
Rapidly disengaging himself from her, he drew her hastily out of the porch, down the steps, and round the nearest corner of the building, where there was a sort of weedy ditch or hollow which ran between the wall of the villa and the bank, ending in a kind of kitchen-midden, made up of all the loose rubbish which had accumulated there from time to time, and beyond which a small, disused back-door opened. Here they again confronted one another.
Either his look of dismay had aroused Grania to a sense of the enormity of her conduct, or the mere break in the chain of her ideas had brought her back to everyday life, in any case, she was now blushing hotly. The fiery fit was past. She felt beaten down and subdued by her own vehemence. All she wanted now was to get away—to get away quickly, and to be alone.
‘Then, indeed and indeed, I don’t know what ails me this evening, so I do not, Murdough,’ she said in a tone of confused apology. ‘’Tis the weather, maybe! God knows it is the queerest, most unnatural sort ever was, and seems to be driving one out of one’s senses.’ She paused; then went on: ‘Maybe ’tis right you are about not going out in it, dear, and I’ll just step back to the house, as you bid me, and, please God, I’ll find Honor something easier, and she’ll hold out till the morning, and if not, why, I must just go look for Teige. Anyway, God won’t desert her, come what will, I’m sure. He couldn’t, could He? He never would have the heart to do such a thing, and she such a real saint!’
She paused again, and looked at him beseechingly, then added timidly, ‘’Tisn’t out and out angry you are with me, dear, are you? Arrah! Murdough, it wasn’t me did it at all, at all, you know, only the weather—just the weather and the fear I was in of Honor dying without the good words at the last.’
For the third time she paused, and stood looking at him, trying hard to see his face in the fog. But his face was a mere blur, and he himself remained absolutely silent. This silence was so extraordinary, so unprecedented upon his part, that it filled her with a sense of awe, both of awe and of self-dismay. After waiting a minute, therefore, she added, still more humbly, ‘Good-bye, dear. God knows ’tis sorry I am for vexing you. It won’t happen again, Murdough—never again, dear; never!’ and she turned to go.
For the first time that evening an unaccountable wave of irresolution swept over Murdough. He was very angry with her, excessively angry; ashamed too, and embarrassed to the last degree; nay, he was inclined, as has been said, to think that she really must have gone mad, since no one who was not mad would behave in such a way. All the same, something new seemed to be stirring within him. He, too, felt ‘queer.’ Could it really be the weather, or, if not, what was it? The effect in any case was that he felt suddenly disinclined to let her go. A sudden wish came over him to stop her, to hear again what she had to say; to quarrel with her, perhaps, but not to part with her so suddenly. He made a step forward. She was still within easy reach; had only gone, in fact, a yard or two up the bank. It was upon the tip of his tongue to call after her, to ask her to stop: to say that, perhaps, after all, he would go with her, since she had so set her heart upon it—piece of folly as it was!—that in any case he would go back with her as far as the cabin, and see for himself how Honor was getting on, whether matters were realty so desperate as she asserted or not. He had made a couple of steps forward, had opened his lips, his hand was actually out-stretched, when out of the dark doorway in the wall behind him another hand suddenly emerged, a lean hand with hairy, clutching fingers, the arm belonging to it clad in a sleeve so ragged that it literally fell away from it in filthy, sooty-coloured ribbons. This other hand caught Murdough’s and held it fast for a minute. Only for a minute, but when it had again released its hold Grania was already out of reach, half-way up the side of the bank, and nothing was to be seen far or near but the white all-encompassing shroud of the fog.