"I reckon Joe Mead's got another fireman, Molly?"
"Ah, no," she laughed, "Joe's been here every day to see when you would be working, and when Joe don't come the other felly comes to see when you'll let him off!"
Life, then, was going on out there in the yards. He
heard the shriek of the engines, the fine voices of the whistles, and the square of his sunny window framed the outer day. People were going on journeys, people were coming home. He had come back, and little Gardiner....
"Sit down," he said brusquely to the girl who stood at his side; "sit down, for God's sake, and talk to me; tell me something, anything, or I shall go crazy again."
CHAPTER X
He recovered rapidly; his hard work had strengthened his constitution, and Molly Shannon modestly withdrew, and Mary Kenny, the landlady, who had disputed the place from the first, took it and gave Antony what further care he needed. He missed Molly the first day she left him, missed her shawl and hat and the music of her Irish voice. He had sent for books through Joe Mead, and read furiously, realizing how long he had been without intellectual food.
But the books made him wretched.