Norah's sufferings were due to her innocence. She was betrayed when yet a child, and a child is easily led astray. But to me she was still pure, and I knew that there was no stain on the soul of her.
For a long while I stood looking after her and turning thoughts over in my mind. In the far distance I could see her stealing along the pavement like a frightened child who is afraid of the shadows. I turned and followed her, keeping well in the gloom of the houses which lined the pavement. She passed through many streets, stopping now and again to speak to the men whom she met on her journey. Never once did she look back. At the corner of Sauciehall Street, a well-dressed and half-intoxicated man stopped and spoke to her. For a few seconds they conversed; then the man linked his arm in hers and the two of them walked off together.
I stood at the street corner, unable to move or act, and almost unable to think. A blind rage welled up in my heart against the social system that compelled women to seek a livelihood by pandering to the impurity of men. Norah had come to Scotland holy and pure, and eager to earn the rent of her mother's croft. She had earned many rents for the landlord who had caused me sufferings in Mid-Tyrone and who was responsible for the death of my brother Dan. To the same landlord Norah had given her soul and her purity. The young girls of Donegal come radiantly innocent from their own glens and mountains, but often, alas! they fall into sin in a far country. It is unholy to expect all that is good and best from the young girls who lodge with the beasts of the byre and swine of the sty. I felt angry with the social system which was responsible for such a state of affairs, but my anger was thrown away; it was a monstrous futility. The social system is not like a person; one man's anger cannot remedy it, one man's fist cannot strike at its iniquities.
Norah had now disappeared, and with my brain afire I followed her round the turn of the street. What I intended to do was even a riddle to myself. When I overtook them the man who accompanied Norah would bear the impress of my knuckles for many days. Only of this was I certain. I turned into several streets and searched until three o'clock in the morning. But she had gone out of my sight once again. Then I went home to bed, but not to sleep.