“Mother of God! I haven’t one penny now, Ellen, not one brown penny!” Norah exclaimed. “It’ll be the streets for me again.”
“We’ll get along somehow, if we work together,” said Ellen.
“We’ll work together; that’s the way,” Norah whispered after a moment’s consideration.
“Twa is always better than yin,” Ellen replied.
Norah looked closely at the woman as if puzzling out something; then her eyes closed gently and quietly and she fell asleep. She awoke several times during the night, mumbled incoherent words, then sank into a deep slumber again. And all night Gourock Ellen watched over Norah Ryan. Morning found her still sitting beside the bed, weary-eyed but patient, her eyes fixed on the face of the sleeping girl.
CHAPTER XXXIII
ST. JOHN VIII, I-II
I
IN the morning Norah was in a raging fever. She spoke in her delirium of many things, prattling like a child about the sea and curraghs of Frosses going out beyond Trienna Bar in the grey dusk of the harvest evening. She held conversation with people visible to none but herself: with Fergus, with Dermod Flynn, with her mother, with the dead child. The girl’s whole history for the last three years was thus disclosed to Gourock Ellen. Days came and went; the patient became no better. A doctor was called in; he applied his stethoscope to Norah’s chest and shook his head gravely.
“Well?” asked Ellen eagerly.
“I’ll come again to-morrow,” said the doctor, and his tones implied that this was a very important announcement. “Meanwhile——” and he gave Ellen instructions as to how she should treat the patient.