"Poor children!" said Nessa, "you are tired out."
"It isn't being tired I mind," said Murtagh, "but it's so dreadfully difficult all about what's right and what's wrong. I cannot understand, and I wish—yes, I really do wish I was dead."
"But that is not brave," said Nessa, gently. "I do not think we need be afraid of our lives, because there is always so much good that we don't know of. I felt afraid when I had to come here, and now I am very happy after all."
"Yes, but," said Murtagh, "it isn't like that; only it does puzzle me so about the wrong sides of things. We were so wretched all the week trying to keep Theresa, and we couldn't laugh at anything, and when we woke up in the morning we thought about her the first thing. But then we thought we ought to keep her; we thought Rosie was talking nonsense. Well, afterwards, all of a sudden, we find out we were all wrong somehow!"
"Oh, no," said Nessa, "you were not all wrong. How can you say that when you were so kind and so brave?"
Murtagh's face brightened for a moment, but then he said: "Yes; but Winnie and I have been thinking, and it came right in the end because you helped us; but we didn't bring it right. We only made Mrs. Daly miserable, and Theresa miserable, and ourselves miserable. We wouldn't desert her because we always thought it was mean deserting people, and all the time Rosie was right; and it is very funny, being brave is worse than being cowardly."
"Ah," said Nessa, "but you are mistaking the part that was wrong. If you had been older, you would not have hidden Theresa in the island at all, because you would have known all the trouble it would bring; you would have come at once to Uncle Blair. But then you couldn't help not being older, and when you had hidden her there, much the best thing you could do was to be brave. If you had taken her back at first, you would never have got the money."
The explanation satisfied Murtagh for a moment, but then he said: "It wasn't our keeping her that got the money. If you hadn't been here, we could never have got it. And supposing it had done what Mr. Plunkett said; supposing it had killed Mrs. Daly?"
"I don't know how to explain," she said, "but I know I love you for doing as you did."
Bobbo sitting nearest her gave her hand a fervent squeeze. It was new and pleasant to them to be loved.