It was now two years and a half since I had seen Micky's Jim or any members of his squad, but often during that time I thought of Norah Ryan and the part she played in my life. Almost daily since leaving the squad I had thoughts of her in my mind. For a while I was angry with myself for allowing such thoughts to master me, but in the end I became resigned to them. Norah's fair face would persist in rising before my vision, and when other dreams, other illusions, were shattered, the memory of Norah Ryan still exercised a spell over me. In the end I resigned myself to the remembrances of her, and in the course of time remembrance gave rise to longings and I wanted to see her again. Now, instead of being almost entirely mental, the longing, different from the youthful longing, was both of the mind and body. I wanted to kiss her, take her on my knees and fondle her. But these desires were always damped by the thought of the other man, so much so that I recoiled from the very thought even of meeting Norah again.
Since meeting Gourock Ellen and hearing the loose talk of the women in Braxey Farm most women were repulsive in my sight. For all that, Norah Ryan was ever the same in my eyes. To me she was a wonder, a mystery, a dream. But when I desired to go and see her a certain pride held me back. She allowed another man to kiss her. I never kissed her, partly because kissing was practically unknown in Glenmornan, and partly because I thought Norah far above the mere caresses of my lips. To kiss her would be a violation and a wrong. Why had she allowed Morrison to kiss her? I often asked myself. She must have loved him, and, loving him, she would have no thought for me. Perhaps she would be annoyed if I went to see her, and it is wrong to annoy those whom we love. True love to a man should mean the doing of that which is most desirable in the eyes of her whom he loves. The man who disputes this has never loved; if he thinks that he has, he is mistaken. He has been merely governed by that most bestial passion, lust.
The year had already taken the best part of autumn to itself, and I was going along to Greenock by the Glasgow road when I came to a farmhouse. There I met with Micky's Jim and a squad of potato-diggers. It gave me pleasure to meet Jim again, and, the pleasure being mutual, he took me into the byre and gave me food and drink. There were many Glenmornan people in the squad, but there were none of those who were in it in my time, and of these latter people you may be certain I lost no time in asking. Gourock Ellen and Annie had not come back that season, and nobody knew where they had gone and what had become of them.
"It does not matter, anyhow," said Jim, who, curiously enough, had nothing but contempt for women of that class.
Norah Ryan, first in my thoughts, was the last for whom I made enquiries.
"She left us a week ago, and went away to Glasgow," said Jim.
"Indeed she did, poor girl," said one of the Glenmornan women.
"And her such a fine soncy lass too! Wasn't it a great pity that it happened?" said another.
"What happened?" I asked, bewildered. "Is she not well?"
"It's worse than that," said a woman.