“I wonder if Mr. Fitzgerald is in?” said Mrs. Slaney suddenly. “I don’t know,” I said, staring from the lighted room into the dark outside. “You hear him come and go, I suppose?” “I seldom hear people come and go. I don’t listen. After all, it doesn’t interest me.” “I always feel so uneasy when he’s in the house. Poor hunted man! You’ve not seen him, I suppose?” I shook my head. “Never.” “Awful for Mrs. Fitzgerald! Those brutes might shoot him at any moment. But I suppose she’s used to it.” “Perhaps he gets a certain amount of fun out of the life. No man can call it dull eluding the Black-and-Tans.” “Fun! Being hunted to death like the vermin of the fields. Fun! Battered from pillar to post. The military are getting more and more audacious. I often wonder where they will stop. Women are frightened to have a bath now in case they come in, and they raided a convent the other day. Thank goodness, there was an outcry at that! A convent which had never admitted a man inside it. And at night. I heard the Mother Superior said the nuns behaved magnificently, there was no outcry from them, and when it was all over they went to the Chapel and tendered thanks to the Blessed Virgin that they had come to no harm.” “I heard it said that the raid was conducted with great civility.” “Yes. I believe those special raiders were not a bad lot of men. But the indignity of it! Would nuns intrigue and be interested in politics?” “I really couldn’t say. You know best, of course. But there must have been some reason for the raid.” “None whatever. It was simply to show their power. The love of terrifying people. But they didn’t terrify the nuns.” “A Unionist told me the other day that the Irish question would be settled only when education was taken completely out of the Church’s hands and no religion was taught in the schools. I believe he’s right.” “Every man and woman worth the name in Ireland would die before they consented to such a thing.” “It’ll come to pass. What’s really wrong with Ireland is religion. You can say what you like. The religion is distorted, people aren’t balanced about it. I’d like to see a wave of agnosticism pass through the country, and after that people might take up religion at its true value.” “Of course we both think so differently. But I tell you that such a thing can never happen in this country.” A blaze of light shone suddenly into the room. There were loud sounds of throbbing engines. We both started to our feet when a knock, which should have roused all the dead in Ireland, shook the front door. Mrs. Slaney’s hand flew to her heart. “What’s that?” I hardly heard her voice above the noise. She moved towards the door and then back again. Again the house was shaken with the knocking. Mrs. Slaney put out the light. “Don’t do that,” I said sharply. “You’ll draw fire.” She put it up again, and ran out of the room and halfway up the stairs, as if she remembered something. Then she turned and came back.