but speaking more to herself_) That
boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her
chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in
labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For
twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the
way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at
something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start,
as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_)
Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard.
He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two
years we'd been married.

(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._)

The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days
after he was gone.

I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to
write till on the way home. (_a wait_)

Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard.
(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk
as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my
talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear
_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman
who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I
got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've
not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in
telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught
Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS
PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the
only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_.

ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh.

(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has
fallen to the floor and steps outside._)

ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait.

MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you
didn't say an unnecessary word!

ALLIE MAYO: I don't.

MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into
things you know nothing about!

(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the
door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is
doing._)

ALLIE MAYO: