‘Sure, pulse of my soul and heart of my heart, ’tis _well_ you’ll do,’ she said, coaxingly. ‘Arrah, then, I don’t mean just at first’--for Grania made an angry gesture of denial--‘but after a bit--when the grief is a little easy, as it will be, and when you can think of me as I shall be, well at last, and going with the help of the saints to be better still. Sure, what am I but a charge to you, and have been these years upon years past? And for the house and the creatures and the rest of it, is not it your very own they are and always have been, and you the first in the world for cleverness and management, and that not on Inishmaan alone, but the two other islands as well, not to speak of the Continent itself? And for anything else, sure you know there is not a boy on the island that isn’t after you, so that you could marry, you could, if you had six hands for them to be putting rings upon, or seven, instead of one, and Murdough Blake himself at the head and top of them all!’ By this allusion to Murdough Blake, Honor had thought to touch the right chord, and to remind Grania of all that still remained to her after she herself was gone. It had exactly the opposite effect, however. ‘Murdough Blake! Murdough Blake! Wisha! ’tis little _he_ cares for me, no more than he does for old Moonyeen out yonder!’ she exclaimed, fiercely. ‘’Tis the house and the beasts and the bit of money _he_ cares for, if he cares for anything, so it is--that and himself!’ It was the first time she had ever admitted such an idea in words, the first time that the long pent-up bitterness had ever crossed her lips. Pride, modesty, custom--the last the strongest barrier of the three--had hindered her from touching upon such a subject, even to Honor. Even now the words were no sooner uttered than a rush of shame overtook her--of shame and a feeling of self-betrayal. She grew red up to the roots of her hair, got up, stammered something about seeing to the beasts, snatched up her petticoat, which was lying near her, and ran out of the cabin into the darkness before Honor had realised what she was about, or could utter a syllable to detain her. CHAPTER IX She did not go very far. Only as far as to the end of the platform, stopping at her usual spot, close to the big granite boulder which blocked the mouth of the gully. Her head was spinning; wild thoughts came and went in it, without, as it seemed to her, her having anything to say to them. She was tingling from head to foot with the sense of self-betrayal, a betrayal not so much to Honor as to herself, to the world at large--to the birds of the air and the stars above them--letting them all know what pride, decency, self-respect required to be kept for ever locked up and hidden away.