V
WHEN she recovered consciousness she was in her own room, lying on the bed. The lamp was lit and she could hear the coal crackling in the fire. She raised herself up in bed and looked enquiringly around. A stranger, a woman who was bending over the fire, hurried forward.
“And how are ye, Norah Ryan?” asked the stranger.
“It’s Ellen that’s in it,” exclaimed Norah, sinking back on the pillow, but more from surprise than from weariness. “Where have ye come from, Ellen?”
“I was in the street,” explained the woman, who was indeed Ellen—Gourock Ellen. “I saw ye lyin’ on the pavement and I kent ye at once. A woman in the crowd knew where ye lived.... Ye hae nae muckle changed, Norah Ryan. Ye’re just the same as ye was when I saw ye last in Jim Scanlon’s squad. And d’ye mind how me and ye was in the one bed?”
“Ellen, I’m glad that ye came,” said Norah in a low voice. “I used to be often thinkin’ of ye, Ellen.”
“Thinkin’ of me, lass?” exclaimed Ellen, bending over the bed, but keeping her lips as far away as possible from Norah lest the young woman should detect the smell of whisky off her breath. “Why were ye thinkin’ about me? Someone worthier should be in your thoughts.... The rascals in the streets! Ah, the muckle scamps! They should be run into the nick and never let out again. Ill-treatin’ a little lassie like you!”
Norah looked up at the woman. Ellen’s pock-marked face was still full of the same unfailing good nature which belonged to her years before when she worked in Micky’s Jim’s squad.
“Where is Annie?”
“I dinna ken. She went off with a man and I haven’t seen her never since.” Ellen smiled, but so slightly that the smile did not change the expression of her eyes.