On the following Thursday the man with the crooked hand appeared at the door as he always had, in the middle of the afternoon. As soon as she saw him she knew that he would not say anything. She had made up her mind that she would leave him alone unless he said something of his own accord. He held up his sore hand and gazed at her without a sign of the radiance that she had seen in his face on the bridge. If he felt ashamed that he had given himself away, there was no sign of that either. He was too far gone in want. He was gone out of reach. It gave her great comfort to see him at the door again. She never afterward thought of getting him into conversation, and after a while she forgot the curiosity that had devoured her concerning him, although she continued to watch for him, and for the others who came.

An Attack of Hunger

__________

MRS. DERDON had the face of a woman who had a good deal to put up with. At this moment, she was in the kitchen, putting up with getting the tea ready for herself and her husband. Her husband’s name was Hubert. She was putting up with setting out the two cups and the two plates and the two saucers and so on, two of everything. There was no need now to set the table for more than two people. The third place was empty, and the third face was missing. John, her son, had left the house and he would not be back, because he had vanished forever into the commonest crevasse in Irish family life — the priesthood. John had gone away to become a priest.

The thought that Mrs. Derdon was not putting up with (because she had never faced it) was, Oh, if only Hubert had died, John would never have left me, never, never, never. He would never have left me alone …. But she was putting up with the secret presence of this thought in her spirit, where it lived hidden, nourishing itself on her energy and on her will and on her dwindling capacity for hope.