‘Och, then, whist, whist, with your wild talk, child,’ Honor exclaimed, breathlessly. ‘Fight God! Is it sensible of what you’re saying you are, you poor, ignorant child, or gone clean mad you have this hot night? Listen to me, Grania, and come a bit closer, for I can’t speak loud. Don’t think I’m any better than yourself, child, for I’m not, ne’er a bit, and for patience, it is out of all patience I am, often and often, times upon times beyond number, out of all patience, and longing to die and be quit of it all. “What is the use of it, my God,” I say, “what is the good or the sense of it? Is it any glory or honour you can get out of the likes of me, lying here, and coughing my heart away? Sure, my God, isn’t it enough? Won’t you give me the bit of ease, and I suffering so bad and so long? Sure, my God, what is the meaning of it at all, at all? Is it with all the saints about you up there in glory and grandeur, you’d want to be looking down at a sick lone woman lying on her back out on a poor little bit of a bare rock in the middle of the salt, salt sea?” And then, Grania dear--well, ’tis like this--there’s a feeling, I can’t tell it to you, for I haven’t the words, nor couldn’t if I had them itself. ’Tis for all the world as if someone was saying, “There, there! Whist with you; whist, I tell you! I know how you feel, you poor creature! I know it! I know it! There, there! Be easy a bit longer; it’s coming to you; it’s coming! I’m sending it--the peace, and the joy, and the rest of it.” And then, Grania, I look out towards the Old Sea there, and I say to myself, “It’s coming! It’s coming! It’s on the way! My God, it’s on the way; it’s on the way!”’ Honor crossed her hands, and her white face shone wonderfully. Grania’s lips twitched; her eyes filled uncontrollably; she made a violent effort to brave it off, but it was not to be done. All the trouble of the last few weeks, all the bitterness of this new discovery--a discovery which was secretly eating into her very flesh--the sight of the suffering so patiently borne by her sister; it all seemed to come upon her at once. The barriers broke down; the floods carried all before them, and she burst out crying. It was like a child’s crying, so loud, so open, so unconcealed, once it had got free. ‘Auch! Auch! Auch! What’ll I do! Auch, my God, what’ll I do?’ she exclaimed, sobbing. ‘Say, Honor agra, what’ll I do at all without you? Is it leaving me you’d be, leaving me all by myself in this big cold world? Auch! Auch! What will I do? Auch, my God, my God, what will I do?’ Honor turned towards her, astonishment in her mild eyes.