One cold morning in January Paddy built up a good fire, and, putting Peggy in her wheel chair, he placed everything in reach that she could possibly need.
"I'll not be back before dark, dearie," he said, "for outside of my convent work I have a job at the wharf that will keep me all the day." With this he kissed her on each pale cheek and on her sweet, patient mouth, and left.
The little cottage in which the Paddys lived, you will remember, was on the far side of the common. Behind it ran an alley where all sorts of people lived,—negroes, beggars, tramps, all of them poor and some of them desperate.
Peggy's cottage was at one end of the row, and the convent wall was built up close to the side of it, leaving a space just wide enough for one person to squeeze through. The walls of the cottage were so thin that whenever the children hid in the narrow passage during their play, the sick woman inside could hear every word they said—could almost hear them breathe.
On the morning in question Peggy was sitting by her fire knitting so fast that you could not tell needles from fingers nor fingers from needles, when she heard the sound of talking between the cottage and the convent wall. She could tell that the speakers were men.
"Now, why have they crept in that narrow crack to talk?" she mused.
A low voice said:
"Are you sure she'll not go back on us?"
Another answered:
"She's safe enough; I've fixed her."