to the wall.

"You had better rest in the back room while I am here," she said.

"I couldn't, indeed I couldn't, miss, him being like that; you mustn't
ask me to. Besides, I've been round and asked the priest to come, and so
I couldn't take my things off. I'll just have some tea and a drop of
whisky in it, and I can keep going all the night, it's more than likely
he'll die at the dawn."

Molly eyed the woman with supreme contempt.

"It isn't at all certain that he's going to die, he'll make a good fight
yet if you will give him a chance."

Mrs. Moloney looked deeply offended. It had been all very well to be
guided by a lady at the beginning of the illness, but now it was very
different. She felt half consciously that science had done its worst,
and bigger questions than temperatures and drugs were at issue.

"A priest now," said Molly, in a whisper of intense scorn, "would kill
him at once."

Mrs. Moloney did not condescend to reply. She had propped a poor little
crucifix, a black cross, with a chipped white figure on it, against a
jam pot on a shelf under the window, and she had borrowed two
candlesticks with coloured candles from a labourer's wife on the floor
beneath. The window had been shut, so that the wind should not blow down
these objects.