“He might tell her the truth,” said Jimmy.
“Be damn! but he might, not knowing.”
“And if he did, the girl’s heart would be broke.”
“It would surely.”
“We’ve kept it from her,” said Jimmy, “and may the Lord forgive us for the lies we’re after telling, fresh ones every hour of the day. And if so be that now, at the latter end, she hears how the doctor has gone and left her it’ll go through her terrible, worse than the influenza.”
“And what would you consider would be best to be done?” asked Patsy.
“I was thinking that maybe, if you was to see him to-morrow, early, before ever she gets at him with her questions, and if you were to give him the word, that it might be, coming from a man like yourself that he has a respect for, that he’d hold off from telling her.”
“He might.”
“And will you do it, Patsy Devlin? Will you do it for the sake of the fine young girl that’s upstairs, this minute, heart scalded with the sorrow that’s on her?”
“It’s little you deserve the like from me,” said Patsy, “you nor the rest of the Guardians. But I’ll do it for the sake of the girl.”