The piano suddenly ceased; a frail shadow came between the light and the window; then a young and beautiful girl passed like a vision across the stretch of room open to the watcher’s eyes. Norah’s glance took in the girl for a moment; she noticed a fair head firmly poised, a small hand raised to brush back the tresses that fell down over a white brow. Even as the small hand was raised, a hand, larger, but almost as white, reached out and the fingers of the girl were gripped in a firm embrace.
Norah started violently, hitting her head sharply against the window-pane, and with difficulty restraining the cry that rose to her lips. The hand, white as a woman’s almost, with the glittering ring on the middle finger, how well she knew it. And who was the fair girl, the fleeting and beautiful vision on whom she looked in from the cold and darkness of the night? Norah did not know, but instinctively she felt rising in her heart a great resentment against the woman in the room. Hatred filled her soul; her breath came sharply through her nostrils and a mist gathered before her eyes.
“I’m not goin’ to cry!” she said defiantly, and began to weep silently even as she spoke.
A withered husk of moon crept up the sky; a dying wind moaned feebly on the roof overhead and on the ground beneath the girl’s feet; a blundering moth struck sharply against her face, fell to the ground, rose slowly and as slowly disappeared. All around was the vast breathing silence of the infinite, the mystery of the world.
Norah looked into the room again and old Farmer Morrison was facing her, a long white pipe in his mouth and a starched collar under his chin. A broad grin overspread his face, and he looked like a fat, serious frog that had suddenly begun to smile. The upturned end of the blind slowly fluttered down and the whole interior of the room was hidden from the girl’s eyes.
“Here am I out in the cold, and everyone is happy inside,” said the poor girl, pressing her hand tightly against her breast as she spoke. “What was I doin’ atall, atall, when I was here before? How I call to mind that night of all nights, a dear night to me! And it is forever written red in my soul.... There he’s in there and in there is another girl—not me. I’m out here in the cold.... Mother of God! What am I to do?”
Norah went back from the window, caring nothing for the noise she made; caring little for what might now happen to her. Her face twitched, her breath stressed through her nostrils, her shoulders rose slowly and fell rapidly. The breeze gathered strength; it swept as if in a light passion around the farmyard and caused the girl’s skirts to cling closely about her legs. She leant for support against the shed in which Micky’s Jim and his squad had taken up their quarters so often. How bare and lonely the place looked now! Somewhere in the far corner a rat was gnawing at the woodwork with its sharp teeth; presently it ran out into the open, moving along rapidly, but as softly as a piece of velvet trailed on polished wood.
At that moment an intense and sudden revulsion of feeling took place within Norah. She was filled with a strange dislike for everything and everybody. A great change began to operate in her soul. In one vivid flash the whole world lay as if naked before her. Man lived for pleasure only; he had no thought for others; he cared only for himself, his passions and desires. What had she been doing all her life? Working for others, slaving that others might be happy. She worked to bring money to the landlord (ah! the dresses that the landlord’s daughters wore!), to Farley McKeown (ah! the lady that got sixty thousand pounds to become his wife!), and to the priest (ah! the big mansion and the many rooms!). At this awful moment she dared not go to one of her people for help. Even her mother would give her the cold glance if she went home; she might shut the very door in her daughter’s face. There was nobody to care for her—but even at that moment she recollected Gourock Ellen and Sheila Carrol, and felt that in these two women great wells of sympathy were open and at these she might refresh her weary soul.
Before her for an instant the world lay exposed to its very core; then as if by a falling curtain the sight was hidden again from her eyes and she found herself, a lonely little girl, leaning against the cold wall, her head sunk on her breast and her numb fingers, that almost lacked feeling, pressing against the rough masonry of the shed. A great wave of self-pity surged through the girl and she burst into tears.
She took no heed of the voice near her, did not see the dark forms which stood beside her, and only started violently and looked round when a hand was laid upon her shoulder. Two persons, a man and a woman, were looking at her. But even then in the terrible isolation of her own thoughts she took little heed of the strangers. She gazed at them vacantly for a moment, then turned towards the wall again as if nothing interested her but the bleak shed and the rats squeaking in the corner. When, after a moment, the strange woman ventured to speak, Norah looked round in surprise. She had forgotten all about the two people. Recollection of having seen them before came to her; they were the man and woman that had made such an impression on Morrison when he viewed them sleeping in the pig-sty.