Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/365

Rh "D' yeh know it?"

He nodded, avoiding her eye.

She waited, shaking. All these years she had thought of Jimmy Farrell, her old lover, dead. He was alive. He had deserted her, and deceived her. She saw the shame of it in the face of this man, even.

"Well," she said at last, in a hard voice, "what of it?"

"Nothin'. But—for the sake of ol' times yuh might—He 's got his pension."

She dropped her apron. "D' yeh mean that I 'd take money from the—the man?"

"He—he—" He fumbled with his hat. "He 'd be glad—"

"Glad!" she cried. "Glad, d' yeh say? Faith, thin, there's small reason. If Jimmy Farrell 's alive, there 's a liar livin'! Why—Why did he— All these years, an'—God hilp us, I—" Her voice broke in a sob. "I liked him better dead."

He winced and swallowed and turned the cud of fine-cut in his cheek. "He 'd be sorry to hear yuh say that."

"Would he! Would he now?" she said in a bitter, low tone. "Thin it 's God's own truth.… Jimmy Farrell.… All these years."

He kept his eyes on the floor. "Mebbe he 's done wrong, but—he could do something to put it right."

She shook her bowed head, the slow tears running down her wrinkles. "I thought to meet him—on th' other side—with all the boys an' gurls." Her hands