"Chut! Once they cut the cables that sort is the worst that's going. She'd be an angel itself though to stand up against a waistrel like yander."
"Bessie will be home for eleven," said Mrs. Collister.
"She'd better, or she'll find Dan Baldromma a man of his word, ma'am."
After that there was another sour silence in which both watched the open-faced clock whose pendulum swung by the wall. Tick, tick tick, said the clock. To the man it was going slowly, to the woman it seemed to fly. But hardly had the fingers pointed to eleven, or the chain begun to shake for the first stroke of the hour, when Dan was at the door, bolting and locking it.
"Will thou not give the girl a few minutes' grace, even?"
"Not half a minute."
"But the ten train hasn't whistled at the bridge yet."
"I've nothing to do with trains, Misthress Collister. Eleven o'clock, I said, and now it's eleven and better."
"But surely thou'll never shut thy door on a poor girl in the middle of the night?"
"There's others that's open to her—she said so herself, remember. She's not for coming home to-night, so take your candle and get to bed, woman."