at big, hairy, tanned man who
beat hot iron with heavy hammers and bent it into wheels and shoes for
horses.

"She takes more interest in that putty-faced brat of hers than she does
in me," he said to himself, angrily, and then, so swift were his changes
of mood, he began to laugh. "Of course, she does," he said aloud. "Why
shouldn't she? It's hers, isn't it?"

He remembered her young beauty and contrasted it with her appearance
when he saw her in the "loanie" with her child. In a few years, he
thought, she would be like any village woman, worn out, misshapen,
tired, with gnarled knuckles and thickened hands. Already she had begun
to neglect her hair....

"It's a damned shame," he murmured. "If she'd married me she'd have kept
her looks!..."

"But she wouldn't marry me," he went on. "I wasn't man enough for
her.... My God, I wish I was out of this!"

5

"Father," he said when he got home, "I'd like to go to London at once!"

"You can't go this minute, my son. There's no train the night!"

"I mean, I want to go as soon as possible!"

Mr. Quinn glanced sharply at him. "You're in a desperate hurry all of a
sudden," he said. "What's up?"

"Nothing, father, only I want to get to work, and I can't work here!..."

"Restless, are you? I was hopin' you'd give me a bit of your company a
while longer!..."

"I'm sorry, father!..."

"That's all right, my boy, that's all right. When do you want to go?"

"To-morrow!"

"You've only been home a short time.... Never mind! I'll come up to
Belfast an' see you off. There's a Co-operative Conference there the day
after the morra, an' I may as well go up with you as go up alone!"

Henry knew that his father was hurt by his sudden decision to leave
Ballymartin, and he felt sorry for the old man's disappointment, but he
felt, too, that he could not bear to stay near Hamilton's farm at
present, knowing that Sheila, whom he had loved and idealised, was
likely to meet him in the roads at any moment, a baby in her arms,
perhaps at her breast, and a husband somewhere near at hand.

"I must go," he told himself. "I must get over this...."

6

Mr. Quinn and he travelled to Belfast together on the following morning,
and they spent the hour before the steamer sailed for Liverpool in
pacing up and down the deck.

"You can write to me when you get to London," Mr. Quinn said, and Henry
nodded his head.

He was very conscious now of his father's disappointment, and although