“Couldn't help it,” replied Pinky. “I'm bad enough, but I can't stand to see a child abused like that—no, not if I die for it.”
Norah crossed to the settee and spoke to Nell. But there was no answer, nor did the bundle of rags stir.
“Nell! Nell!” She called to deaf ears. Then she put her hand on the child and raised one of the arms. It dropped away limp as a withered stalk, showing the ashen white face across which it had lain.
The two women manifested no excitement. The child had fainted or was dead—which, they did not know. Norah straightened out the wasted little form and turned up the face. The eyes were shut, the mouth closed, the pinched features rigid, as if still giving expression to pain, but there was no mistaking the sign that life had gone out of them. It might be for a brief season, it might be for ever.
A little water was thrown into the child's face. Its only effect was to streak the grimy skin.
“Poor little thing!” said Pinky. “I hope she's dead.”
“They're tough. They don't die easy,” returned Norah.
“She isn't one of the tough kind.”
“Maybe not. They say Flanagan stole her when she was a little thing, just toddling.”
“Don't let's do anything to try to bring her to,” said Pinky.