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“Of course He weeps for her”

“I’m sure he does”

“What happened to her?” Bell asked

“Wait for me here,” the priest said “I’ll only be aand ca the block, Father Jack said, “There are wickedfronorant people They’ll steal their money, and if they have no money they will steal their drink If they have no drink, they’ll steal their children Whatever the wicked can sell or use themselves The child was kidnapped”

“Billy’s sister?”

“Snatched froain Surely she courses through Billy’s brain when he injects the morphine Where was he when she was stolen? Where was he ever when the poor babe was needful? He looks back now and loves the idea of that wee child More than he ever loved the child herself”

The old priest shook his head in anger and disgust “When I think of the nights I prayed for that child… and all the children like her”

Bell waited, sensing a natural ebullience in the old man that would rise to the surface And it did after a while His expression brightened

“In truth, it was Brian O’Shay who cared for that little girl”

“Eyes O’Shay?”

“He looked after her when Billy and his shiftless parents were drunk” Father Jack lowered his voice “They say that O’Shay beat her father to death for sins against the child only the Devil could iine She was the only soul Brian O’Shay ever loved It was a blessing that he never knehat happened to her”

“Could Brian O’Shay have kidnapped her?”

“Never in this life! Even if he weren’t long gone to Hell”

“But what if he was not killed when he vanished? What if he came back? Could he have kidnappe

d her?”