Norah began to pray under her breath to the Virgin, but had only got half through with her prayer when a shriek from the bed on her left startled her. Maudie was sitting upright, yelling at the top of her voice. “Cannot ye let an old body be?” she cried. “I’m only wantin’ a night’s doss at the foot of the stairs. That’s not much for an old un to ask, is it? Holy Jesus! I cannot be let alone for a minute. Beg pardon; I’m goin’ away, but ye might let me stay here, and me only an old woman!”
Maudie opened her watery eyes and stared round. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, and her face—red as a crab—looked terrifying in the half-light of the room.
“Beg pardon,” she croaked, and her voice had a sound like the breaking of bones. “Beg pardon. I’m only an old woman and I never did nobody no harm!”
She sank down again, pulled the blankets over her shoulders and fell asleep.
Fresh arrivals came in every minute, staggered wearily to their bunks and threw themselves down without undressing. About midnight a female attendant, a young, neat girl with a pleasing face, entered, surveyed the room, helped those who lay on the floor into bed, turned down the gas and went away.
Slumber would not come to Norah. All night she lay awake, listening to the noise of the dust-carts on the pavement outside, the chiming of church clocks, the deep breathing of the sleepers all around her, and the sudden yells from Maudie’s bunk as the woman started in her sleep protesting against some grievance or voicing some ancient wrong.
The daylight was stealing through the grimy window when Norah got up and proceeded to dress. A deep quietness, broken only by the heavy breathing of the women, lay over the whole place. The feeble light of daybreak shone on the ashen faces of the sleepers, on the naked body of a well-made girl who had flung off all her clothing in a troubled slumber, on Mary Martin’s clay-caked legs that stuck out from beneath the blankets, on Maudie Stiddart’s wrinkled, narrow brow beaded with sweat; on the faces of all the sleepers, the wiry and weakly, the fit and feeble, the light of new-born day rested. Suddenly old Mary turned in her sleep, then sat up.
“Where are ye goin’ now?” she called to Norah.
“To look for a friend,” came the answer.
“A man?”