Summary

The convent in New Ross is “a powerful-looking place on the hill at the far side of the river” (39). The nuns operate a school and a laundry out of the convent. Rumors percolate about the operation; some townsfolk whisper that the girls who work there are “of low character” and that the place “was no better than a mother-and-baby home where common, unmarried girls went in to be hidden away after they had given birth” (41).

One evening, Furlong makes a late delivery of coal to the convent. He enters a small chapel and finds a group of young women, all in poor condition, cleaning the floor. One of the women asks Furlong to “take me as far as the river” (43). When he declines, she tells him that “all I want to do is drown meself” (44). A nun arrives, hurries Furlong out of the...