"Himsilf.... Dinny."
Mrs. Byrne expressed her emotion and showed her tact by silently compressing her lips.
"I've quit 'im, fer good an' all." She stroked a tear down her cheek with a thick forefinger. "I'll niver go back. Niver!"
"Come away with yuh, Mary Cregan," Mrs. Byrne cried, in her breathy huskiness. "At your age! Faith, yuh're as flighty as one o' them girls with the pink silk petticoats. He's yer husban', ain't he? D'yuh think yuh were married over the broomstick? Come an' behave yerself like a decent woman. What'd Father Dumphy say to this, think yuh?"
"He's a man. I know what he'd say. He'd tell me to go back to Cregan. I'll niver go back. Niver!"
"Yuh won't! What'll yuh do, then? Where'll yuh go to?"
"I'll niver go back. Niver! He's broke me best chiny—an' kicked the leg off the chair—an' overtoorned the table—an' ordered me out o' the little bit o' home I been all these years puttin' together. The teapot th' ol' man brought from Ireland—the very teapot—smashed to smithereens! An' the little white dishes with the gilt trimmin's I had to me weddin' day, Mrs. Byrne! There was the poor things all broke to bits!" She stopped to point at the sidewalk, as if the wreckage lay there before her. "All me little bit o' chiny. All of it. All of it, Mrs. Byrne. Ev'ry bit! Boorsted!"
Her tears choked her. She could not express the piercing irreparability of the injury. It would not have been so bad if he had beaten her; a hurt will heal. But the innocent, wee cups—and the fat old brown teapot—and the sweet little chair with its pretty legs, carved and turned so daintily! She had washed them and wiped them, and dusted and polished them, and been so careful of them and felt so proud of them, for twenty years past. And, now, there they were lying, all in bits—past mending—gone forever. And they so pretty and so harmless.
The crash as they fell on the floor had sounded in her ears like the scream of a child murdered.
She started forward again, determinedly. "I'll niver go back to 'm. He can have his house to himsilf.... What do I care for Father Dumphy? He wants nothin' but the dime I leaves at the choorch doore, an' the dime I drops on the plate! Whin me poorse's impty, he'll not bother his head about me!"