LL. Not _our_ people!

KATHARINE. Oh? Have you brought back any better news--from there?

PARNELL. Nothing special. The result of the election was out.

KATHARINE. You didn't wire it. How much were we to the bad?

PARNELL. A few hundred. What does more or less matter? It's--it's the
priests who are winning now.

KATHARINE. With divided congregations as the result.

PARNELL. Yes. But I'd rather they won than the politicians. They are
honest, at any rate. Poor fools!

KATHARINE. So it's the real country we are seeing now?

PARNELL. Yes. That's the material I've had to work with!

KATHARINE. Wonderful--considering.

PARNELL. And now--now one gets to the root! But I always knew it.

KATHARINE. So you are not disappointed?

PARNELL. No; only defeated. Yet I did think once that I was going to win.

KATHARINE. So you will.

PARNELL. When I'm dead, no doubt ... some day. You can't fight for a
winning cause, and not know that.

KATHARINE. But you are not going to die yet, dearest.

PARNELL (_with a deep sigh of dejection_). Oh! Wifie, I'm so tired,
so tired!

KATHARINE. Well, who has a better right? Be tired, my dear! Give yourself
up to it: let everything else go, and just rest! You _are_ tired out.
That's what I've been telling you.

PARNELL. Too much to do yet. Even dying would take more time than I can
spare just now.

KATHARINE. But you must spare time to live, my dear--if you really wish
to.

PARNELL. Wish? I never wished it more--for now I _am_ living. I'm
awake. Doubts are over.

KATHARINE. King ... look at me! Don't take your eyes away, till I've
done.... One of those papers said (what others have been saying) that it
was I ... I ... need I go on?

PARNELL (_with grim tenderness_). Till you've done: you said ...

KATHARINE. I--that have ruined you.

PARNELL. That's just what they would say, of course. It's so easy: and
pleases--so many.

KATHARINE. All the same--by mere accident--mayn't it be true? It
_has_ happened, you know, sometimes, that love and politics haven't
quite gone together.

PARNELL. Love and politics never do. Do you think I've loved any of my
party-followers: that any of them have loved me?

KATHARINE. Doesn't--O'Kelly?

PARNELL. He's gone now--with the rest.

KATHARINE. Didn't Mr. Biggar?

PARNELL. Dead.... No.

KATHARINE. Still, you love--Ireland.

PARNELL. Not as she is to-day--so narrow and jealous, so stupid, so blind!
Has she anything alive in her now wor