BROADBENT [attentively, beginning to suspect Larry of misconduct
with Nora, and resolving to get to the bottom of it]. Since when?
I mean how old were you when she came?

DOYLE. I was seventeen. So was she: if she'd been older she'd
have had more sense than to stay with us. We were together for 18
months before I went up to Dublin to study. When I went home for
Christmas and Easter, she was there: I suppose it used to be
something of an event for her, though of course I never thought
of that then.

BROADBENT. Were you at all hard hit?

DOYLE. Not really. I had only two ideas at that time, first, to
learn to do something; and then to get out of Ireland and have a
chance of doing it. She didn't count. I was romantic about her,
just as I was romantic about Byron's heroines or the old Round
Tower of Rosscullen; but she didn't count any more than they did.
I've never crossed St George's Channel since for her sake--never
even landed at Queenstown and come back to London through
Ireland.

BROADBENT. But did you ever say anything that would justify her
in waiting for you?

DOYLE. No, never. But she IS waiting for me.

BROADBENT. How do you know?

DOYLE. She writes to me--on her birthday. She used to write on