"Under God, the day and the night, it's Dermod Flynn that's in it!" she cried in a frightened voice.
I was looking at Norah Ryan. Just for a moment she was far from my thoughts, and my mind was busy with other things. I had almost lost all hopes of meeting her, and thought that she was dead or gone to a strange country.
"Is this you, Norah?" I asked, coming to a standstill, and putting out the hand of welcome to her.
She seemed taken aback, and placed her hand timorously in mine. Her cheeks were very red and her brow was as white as snow. She had hardly changed in features since I had last seen her, years before. Now her hair was hidden under a large hat; long ago it hung down in brown waving tresses over her shoulders. The half-timid look was still in the grey eyes of her, and Norah Ryan was very much the same girl who had been my sweetheart of old. Only, now she had sinned and her shame of all shames was the hardest to bear.
"Is it ye, yerself, that's in it, Dermod Flynn?" she asked, as if not believing the evidence of her own eyes.
In her voice there was a great weariness, and at that moment the sound of the waters falling over the high rocks of Glenmornan were ringing in my ears. Also I thought of an early delicate flower which I had once found killed by the cold snows on the high uplands of Danaveen, ere yet the second warmth of the spring had come to gladden the bare hills of Donegal. In those days, being a little child, I felt sorry for the flower that died so soon.
"I didn't expect to meet ye here," said Norah. "Have ye been away back and home since I saw ye last?"
"I have never been at home since," I answered. "Have you?"
"Me go home!" she replied. "What would I be doin' goin' home now with the black mark of shame over me? Do ye think that I'd darken me mother's door with the sin that's on me heavy, on me soul? Sometimes I'm thinkin' long, but I never let on to anyone, and it's meself that would like to see the old place again. It's a good lot I'd give to see the grey boats of Dooey goin' out again beyont Trienna Bar in the grey duskus of the harvest evenin'! Do ye mind the time ye were at school, Dermod, and the way ye hit the master with the pointer?"