at last, as though this were a desert
island, they two alone remaining? God!

Was it indeed true, asked Mary Warren, in her bitter darkness, that the
rude doctrine of material ideas alone must rule the world now in this
strange, new, inchoate, revolutionary age? Was it indeed true that
sentiment, the emotions, the tenderer things of life, a woman's
immeasurable inheritance--must all these things go also into the
discards of the world's vast bloody bargain counter?

She remembered Annie's rude but well-meant words, back there where they
once crudely struggled with these great questions. "What's the use of
trying to change the world, Sis?" she had said. "Something's going
wrong every minute of the day and night--something's coming up all the
time that ought to be different. But we ain't got nothing to do with
running the world--just running our own two lives is enough for us."

Hours or moments later--she could not have told which--she raised her
head suddenly. What was it that she had heard? There was a cough, a
footfall in the yard.

Oh, then he was coming home! Why not have the whole thing out now,
over once and for all? Why not speak plainly and have it done? He had
not been so terrible. He was an ignorant man, but not unkind, not
brutal.

She felt the light in the door darken, knew that some one was standing
there. But something, subconscious, out of her new, dark
world--something, she could not tell what--told her this was not Sim
Gage.

She reached out her hand instinctively. By mere chance it fell upon
the heavy revolver in its holster which Sim had hung upon the pole at
the head of her bed. She caught it out, drew back into the room,
toward the head of the bed, and stumbling into her rude box chair, sat
there, the revolver held loosely in her hand. She knew little of its
action.

She heard a heavy step on the floor, that did not sound familiar, a
clearing of the throat which was yet more unfamiliar, a laugh which was
the last thing needed. This man had no business there, else he would
not have laughed.

"Who's there?" she called out, tremulously. "Who are you?" She turned
on him her sightless eyes, a vast terror in her soul.

"Good morning," said a throaty voice. She could fairly hear him grin.
"How's everything this morning? Where's your man this morning?"

"He's--just across in the meadows--he'll be back soon," said Mary
Warren.

"Is that so? I seen him ten miles down the ro