“Sheila Carrol, you say,” said a uniformed man who had just entered and who overheard Norah’s remark. “Twice convicted, once for being on the streets, once for child neglect,” he muttered, looking not a little proud of his knowledge. “The back of the head and the spine that’s hurt. When one is struck hard in them places it’s all over.”
Norah felt like a cripple whose crutches have been taken away. That night when she returned to her room she slept none and wept bitterly, at times believing that the dead woman was with her in the room. Being very lonely she kept the light burning till morning, and as the fire had gone out she shivered violently at intervals and a dry tickling cough settled on her chest.
II
THE merchant who supplied cloth to the two women had gone bankrupt. Probably Sheila was so much overwhelmed by this that she forgot to avoid the dangers of the crowded streets on her way home. Perhaps she was planning some scheme for the future, and as is the case when the mind dwells deeply on some particular subject, the outside world was for a while non-existent to her. An eye-witness of the tragedy said that Sheila had taken no heed of the oncoming tram; that death was instantaneous.
When morning came Norah Ryan was conscious of a dull sickly pain behind her left shoulder-blade. The child slept badly during the night and coughed feebly when it awoke. There were no matches to light the fire; a half-loaf, a pennyworth of tea and a quarter hundred-weight of coal was all that remained in the room.
Norah went into Meg’s compartment. The door was lying open. The woman sat by a dead fire, having just awakened from a drunken sleep on the floor. She was a kind-hearted soul, generous and sympathetic, but fond of drink. A glass of whisky made her very tipsy, two glasses made her very irritable.
“Ye’re up early, lass,” said the old woman, rising to her feet and scratching her head vigorously. “Is Sheila sleepin’ yet?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed old Meg, sitting down on the only chair in the room and raising both hands, palms outwards, to a level with her face.
“A tram struck her last night when she was comin’ home,” said Norah. “Killed at once, the policeman said that she was.”