one. And even if it were not gone, she had no means of going
back to it--her money was almost exhausted. And this black world was
not the earth, this new covering of her soul was not life. Oh, small
enough seemed Mary Warren to her own self now.

She stumbled back to her seat behind the table, near the bunk, and
tried to take up her knitting again. The silence seemed to her so
tremendous that she listened intently for some sound, any sound. Came
only the twitter of a little near-by bird, the metallic clank of a
meadow lark far off across the meadows. They at least were friendly,
these birds. She could have kissed them, held them close to her, these
new friends.

But why did he not come back--the man? What was going to happen if he
did come back? How long would all this last? Must it come to death,
or to the acceptance of terror or of shame, as the price of life?

She began to face her problem with a sort of stolid courage or
resolution--she knew not what to call it. She was at bay--that was the
truth of it. There must be some course of action upon which presently
she must determine. What could it be? How could she take arms against
her new, vast sea of troubles, so far more great than falls to the
average woman, no matter how ill, how afflicted, how unfit for the
vast, grim conflict which ends at last at the web?

One way out would be to end life itself. Her instinct, her religious
training, her principles, her faith, rebelled against that thought.
No--no! That was not right. Her life, even her faint, pulsing,
crippled life, was a sacred trust to her. She must guard it, not
selfishly, but because it was right to do so. She could feel the
sunshine outside, could hear the birds singing. They said that life
still existed, that she also must live on, even if there were no sound
of singing in her own heart ever again.

Then she must go back to the East, whence she had come?--Even if
great-hearted Annie would listen to that and take her back, where was
the money for the return passage? How could she ask this man for
money, this man whom she had so bitterly deceived? No, her bridges
were burned.

What then was left? Only the man himself. And in what capacity?
Husband; or what? And if not a husband, what?

. . . No, she resolved. She would accept duty as the price of life,
which also was a duty; but she would never relax what always to her had
meant life, had been a part of her, the principles