Maurice turned toward the bed, his attention suddenly arrested. The name was that by which his aunt had usually been called, and he seemed to perceive in the talk of the woman something familiar. The possibility that this battered old creature might be his nurse came to him with a shock, so broken, so altered, so degraded was she; and as he looked at her he rejected the idea as preposterous. "But your husband will be punished for his brutality," Ashe remarked absently. He spoke like a man in a dream, as if his whole intent were fixed upon something so widely apart from the present that he hardly knew what was passing about him. "Who wants him punished?" cried out the sick woman with sudden shrill vehemence. "That's what you rich folks are always after. Who asked the lady to come here with her purse in her hand to tempt him when he wasn't himself to know what he was doing? First you get him into a scrape, and then you punish him for it! What for do I want Tim shut up and me left to starve in me bed? If Tim's a little pleasant when he's had a drop more'n would be handy for a priest, whose business is it but mine? It's little comfort he gets, poor man; and he only takes what he can get to keep up his spirits in these poor times, and me sick and can't do for him." "That's what I say too, Mrs. Murphy," the slatternly girl aroused herself to interpose. "Them as never had no hard times in their lives is always ready to jump on a poor man when he's down." Maurice began to feel as if he were entangled in a strange and uncanny dream. Philip seemed more and more to retire within himself, and Wynne felt that he must do something to attract attention from his friend's conduct. "We haven't anything to do with punishment, Mrs. Murphy," he said soothingly, coming forward as he spoke. "We came only to see if there is anything we can do to make you more comfortable." The old woman answered nothing, but she stared at him with wild eyes. "We may be able to make you more easy," he went on cheerfully, "if we can't fix things for you just as they were at Aunt Hannah's." He used the name half unconsciously as the result of the suggestion of old association and half with an impulse to prove the faint possibility that this might be Norah Dolen. As he spoke Mrs. Murphy raised herself on one elbow, stretching out a lean hand convulsively toward him. "Master Maurice!" she cried. "Holy Mother of Heaven, is it yourself?" He went to her quickly, and took the outstretched hand. "Yes, Norah. It is I." She gazed at him a moment with haggard eyes, and then a look of deep tenderness came into the worn old face. "Blessed be the saints!" she murmured. "It's me own boy!" She drew her hand out of his grasp to stroke his arm and the folds of his cassock. He sat down by her on the bed, and she fell back upon the dingy pillow, breaking into hysterical tears. She caught one of his hands and carried it to her lips, kissing it in a sort of rapture.