overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.)

ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more.
(_looking at woman she has arrested, 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