Ellen Keenans looked closely at the speaker. The broken nose, almost on a level with her face, the pockmarked flesh of the cheeks and chin, the red eyelids, the watery, expressionless eyes filled the young lady with nauseous horror. In the renovated society of which Ellen Keenans dreamt, this woman would be entirely out of place, just as much as her sweetheart and herself with their well-made clothing, their soft leather shoes and gold rings, were out of place here. And these two people, the man who wolfed up his bread like a dog and the woman with the disfigured face, might have something great and good in their natures. Alec had given such sentiments voice often. How noble-minded he was, she thought.
The door of the building faced east. The early sun, rising over a bank of grey clouds, suddenly beamed forth with splendid ray and lit up the dark interior of the sty. This beautiful beam disclosed what the darkness had hidden, the dirt and squalor of the place.
The floor, on which crawled numberless wood lice and beetles, was indented with holes filled with filthy smelling water, and the blank walls were literally covered with reddish cockroaches. The sunlight beamed on a spider’s web hanging from the roof; the thin silky threads were covered with dead insects. Rats had burrowed into the base of the walls and the whole building was permeated with an overpowering and unhealthy odour. Ellen Keenans glanced up at the joists where the sun-rays struck them, then down the stretch of dark slimy wall, down, down to the floor, and there, in bold relief against the darkness, she saw in all its youthful beauty the face of a sleeping girl. Ellen turned an enquiring glance to the woman by the fire; then to Morrison, whose face wore a troubled expression.
“Who have you here, Donal?” asked the young man.
“A lass that we found greetin’ outside your door last night,” said the man, this time not appealing to Jean for an answer. “Happen that ye know her?”
The two by the fire looked at the young couple. The woman’s watery eyes took on a new expression; they seemed suddenly to have become charged with condemnation and contempt.
“Is she one of Jim Scanlon’s squad?” asked Morrison. Although putting the question he had recognised Norah instantly, and now he wished to be away. Donal and Jean looked suddenly terrible in his eyes; the pity he felt for them a moment ago now gave place to a fear for himself. Odd little waves of expression were passing over the woman’s face and in her eyes he read a terrible accusation.
“It was all her fault, not mine,” he muttered under his breath. “That night and the dog howling and the stars out above us.... But it was all her own fault. Why did she keep following me about? She might have known that I could never have.... We’ll go back to the house now,” he said aloud to Ellen Keenans. “We’ve seen all that is to be seen.”
The girl glanced at him interrogatively, curious. “Who is she?” came the question.
“Ye’ll soon know,” said the woman by the fire, rising and going to the shake-down by the wall. “Wake up, lass!” she cried to the sleeper.