"Desmond O'Connor," he said, and all the while he was stamping and closing envelopes, "came under the influence of a man——."
"Gerard!" she cried, interrupting him.
"John Gerard. If he had remained here that influence must have ruined him."
"And could you not separate the two?" she asked.
"Not I, nor you; not even Father Healy. Desmond was gambling, he was beginning to drink; he would have degenerated into an habitual drunkard——."
"I as much as told him that myself," said Molly Healy.
"Outside there," he pointed to the window towards the east, "in Melbourne, lies the boy's chance. It was not for my sake I sent him packing. That boy was useful to me, and I can never replace him; but better 'The Mercury' should suffer than he and Kathleen O'Connor."
"Well, you're not a bad sort of man," she remarked. "Your heart's better than your face."
Denis Quirk laughed heartily at her remark.
"You don't like my face?" he remarked. "Haven't I been called the ugliest man in Grey Town? And proud I am of it."