Just then an interruption came from outside. Footsteps came rushing to the door. Then gasps were heard. Then a panting sound became audible. Then Katie Fox burst into the room, with her right hand on her hip, her eyes glittering, looking about her wildly. She rushed up to Biddy Burke. She bent down from the hips towards her and began to speak immediately, gasping after each word. “What d’ye think of it, Biddy?” she cried. “D’ye know where I found him? D’ye know where I found him? The big hulkin’ waster! An’ she that’s not fit to walk the same street as me with her big, ugly arms around his neck! She laughed in me face. She laughed”—screaming—“in me face! I wish to God I had hit her with the bottle I threw. That ud spoil her mug. Though it was spoiled enough the day she was born. Who was she, may I ask? Who was she, Biddy Burke? I’m askin’ ye. Ye don’t know an’ ye’d never guess in a thousand years. Who would she be but me bould Connemara Maggie! That imperent trapster that came up here last year as a skivvy in a Gaelic Leaguer’s house, one o’ them crazy fellahs that goes around in kilts. She came up here an’ before she was three months in town she was put in the family way be a soldier. Then she comes down here, with her curly locks an’ her big face like a heifer, savin’ the comparison. I pushed up past Aunt Betty in the hall an’ she shoutin’ after me. I bust into the room an’ there he was, sittin’ on the floor, with his legs spread out, drinkin’ outa the neck of a bottle, laughin’ like a fool, with her sittin’ beside him. ‘Hello, Katie,’ says he, ‘d’ye want a drink?’ ‘’Twill do ye good,’ says she with a giggle. Me curse on her! I gave him a bit o’ me mind an’ . . . Biddy, for God’s sake, gimme a drink o’ water. Biddy, listen.” She threw herself suddenly at Biddy’s feet and began to moan. But almost immediately she jumped to her feet again and cried out: “An’ what’s more he gave three quid to that swank of an Englishwoman. He gave her three quid and he paid two quid more to Aunt Betty, money that was owin’ to her for board, an’ he never gave me a penny. Me that kept him for the last six months when I hadn’t a bite mesel’. But I’ll tell everybody. I’ll tell.” She looked around her wildly. She saw Mulholland. She came up to him and bent down close to his face. Her hat trailed off. Her hair fell down over her eyes. She swayed. She pointed her right forefinger menacingly at Mulholland’s forehead.