She uttered the words with a tigerish pant as she swung on her heels and strode away to the end of the verandah, where she stood for a moment staring up at the sky, before she returned.
"It's the curse of the Irish to feel the wounds of others as keenly as though they were one's own," she said, as she sat down again. "What concern is it of mine whether the old fool hoards his money and drives lost souls to perdition? I've no right to worry about other people's troubles. Sure I have enough of my own. But it just maddened me to think of it. Oh, it's the Irish hearts that suffer!"
The harsh vibrant tones had gone; the voice he heard was that of the woman who had pleaded earlier in the evening for compassion for the men who had injured her.
Impulsively he reached out his hand and touched hers.
"You must not," he said. "You must not heed such tales. You are too warm-hearted. The sordid side of life is not for you. We who have to come in contact with it, and know it in all its wretched squalor, know only too well that rarely, if ever, can one of the high-pitched stories of personal wrong be justified. The greater the criminal, the greater the protestations of innocence and injustice. Do not be deceived. You, who are so full of sympathy and gentleness, you who would not, by your own hand, hurt the hair of a man's head, you——"
She sprang up.
"Don't!" she cried. "Don't! You must not—never—never—I told you I would not have you speak to me of—I must not hear such things. I——"
He was by her side, his two hands clasping hers.
"Nora, I must. Darling, I love you. I cannot bear to see——"
She pushed him back, flinging her hands free from his grasp, to clasp and press them to her bosom as though to still the great heaving gasps which made it rise and fall in tumultuous spasms.