“Why—why—her lover went back on her—that’s all. She got so blue we just couldn’t do anything with her. I tried to, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Lover, eh?” put in Maguire as though that were the most unheard-of thing in the world. “What was his name?”
“I don’t know. You never can tell that.”
“What was her name—Annie?” asked Delahanty wisely, as though he knew but was merely inquiring for form’s sake.
“No—Emily.”
“Well, how did she come to get over there, anyhow?” inquired Maguire most pleasantly.
“George took her,” she replied, referring to a man-of-all-work about the place.
Then little by little as they sat there the whole miserable story came out, miserable as all the wilfulness and error and suffering of the world.
“How old was she?”
“Oh, twenty-one.”