care for if it wasn't for
you."

Then he stepped inside the house--the place was silent; he called, but
no one answered; he threw open the doors of the rooms, but they were
empty; he went outside and called again, but no reply came, except the
flutter of a night-hawk's wings and the cry of a whippoorwill. He went
back into the house and sat down with his head between his hands. So,
for a moment, and then he raised his head, and said with a sad smile:
"Faith, Shon, me boy, this takes the life out of you! the empty house
where she ought to be, and the smile of her so swate, and the hand of
her that falls on y'r shoulder like a dove on the blessed altar-gone,
and lavin' a chill on y'r heart like a touch of the dead. Sure, nivir
a wan of me saw any that could stand wid her for goodness, barrin'
the angel that kissed me good-bye with one foot in the stirrup an' the
troopers behind me, now twelve years gone, in ould Donegal, and that
I'll niver see again, she lyin' where the hate of the world will vex the
heart of her no more, and the masses gone up for her soul. Twice, twice
in y'r life, Shon McGann, has the cup of God's joy been at y'r lips, and
is it both times that it's to spill?--Pretty Pierre shoots straight and
sudden, and maybe it's aisy to see the end of it; but as the just God
is above us, I'll give him the lie in his throat betimes for the word he
said agin me darlin'. What's the avil thing that he has to say? What's
the divil's proof he would bring? And where is she now? Where are you,
Lucy? I know the proof I've got in me heart that the wreck of the world
couldn't shake, while that light, born of Heaven, swims up to your eyes
whin you look at me!"

He rose to his feet again and walked to and fro; he went once more to
the doors; he looked here and there through the growing dusk, but to no
purpose. She had said that she would not go to her shop this night; but
if not, then where could she have gone and Ikni, too? He felt there was
more awry in his life than he cared to put into thought or speech.
He picked up the sewing she had dropped and looked at it as one would
regard a relic of the dead; he lifted her handkerchief, kissed it, and
put it in his breast. He took a revolver from his pocket and examined it
closely, looked round the room as though to fasten it in his memory,
and then passed out, closing the door behind him. He walked down the
hillside and went to her shop in the one street of the town, but she was