Disappointment mingled with relief in Mary's countenance: she had reached that stage where it would have been not altogether unendurable to look at Angela Ann's dead face, even in a morgue.
As she retraced her way home, the chill of the sharp February night struck into her mercilessly. When she set forth, she had scarcely noticed in it her preoccupation; but now that another expectation, however tragic, had proved false, and the situation stretched ahead of her indefinitely dull and despairing again, the abrupt relaxation left her physically as well as mentally "let down," and she shivered violently as she hurried along.
"Mother o' God," she cried, the tears rolling swiftly down her shrunken cheeks, "wheer is my gyurl this noight? If I could on'y know she had a roof over her head an' a fire t' kape her warrm!"
Casey was still out when she got back, and she was thankful, for the sight of her tears made him ugly these days. "She've disgraaced us," he said of Angela Ann, "an' she be dead t' me, an' ought t' be t' you, if ye had proper shame."
Mary could give herself up to the luxury of grief, therefore, and she did, until she fell asleep. The next morning she was up betimes, meaning to go to early mass in the basement of the church before "drissy folks" were abroad in their Sunday finery. For more than one reason Mary avoided the later masses; her rags were small shame to her compared with the more than half-suspicious inquiries of acquaintances as to the whereabouts of Angela Ann.
"'Tis more lies I'm after tellin'," thought poor Mary, "than th' praste kin iver take aft o' me. 'N' ag'in' I do pinance enough t' kape me busy half me time, an' go t' git me holy c'munion, I'm not out o' th' prisence o' th' blissed Sacrament befoore I'm havin' t' lie ag'in t' save that poor, silly gyurl's name!"
This morning, however, in spite of her early rising and her efforts to get to seven o'clock mass, events conspired to thwart her intentions. Mollie woke up with a headache, and Johnnie had to be despatched on a vinegar-borrowing expedition, so that the time-honored application of brown paper soaked in vinegar might be made to the poor little head. The baby cried lustily, with a colicky cry, and Mary had to hasten the boiling of tea, that wee Annie might have a good, hot cup to soothe her. Casey, complaining profanely of broken slumbers, was in no mood to be left home with fretting children while Mary went to mass.
It was nine o'clock before she could get away; the last mass in the basement was at nine o'clock. But the Elevation of the Host had been celebrated before she got there, and she turned disappointedly to the stairs; she would have to wait for half-past nine mass in the main church. It seemed as if Providence were balking her, but on the stairway she learned the reason why.
"Ye mus' be sure t' say a spicial prayer on this mass," said one woman who passed her to another, "'tis the first mass this young praste have iver said, an' a blissin' go wid it t' thim thot prays wid him."
Saul on the Damascus road had no more overwhelming sense of arrest and redirection than Mary Casey had, as, trembling with excitement, she reached the top of the stairway.