“If I had that story to tell I could make something out of it,” May thought. She imagined herself telling the story of the man and the woman and the dog. How she would decorate it, add little touches. That fat man in Cleveland might have been funny but had she been entrusted with the telling of the story, she was sure he would have been outdone. Her mind began to recast the story and then the fear, that had all evening been lurking within, came back and she forgot the man, the woman and the dog on the train. Again her eyes searched the faces in the room and when a new man or woman came in she trembled. “Suppose Jerome Hadley were to come here tonight,” she thought and the thought made her ill. It was a thing that might happen. Jerome was a young man and a bachelor and he no doubt went about to places, to dances and to shows at the Bidwell Opera House, and he might now, at any moment, come into the very room in which she was sitting and walk directly to her. In the berry field he had been bold and had not cared what he said and, if he came to the dance, he would walk directly to her and might even take her by the arm. “I want you,” he would say. “Come outside with me.” May tried to think what she would do if such a thing happened. Would she struggle and refuse to go, thus attracting the attention of everyone in the room, or would she go quietly and make her struggle with the man outside alone in the darkness? Her mind ran into a tangle of thoughts. It was true that Jerome Hadley had done something quite terrible to her, had tried to kill something within her, but after all she had surrendered to him. She had lain with the man—filled with fear, trembling to be sure—but the thing had been done. In a strange sort of way she belonged to Jerome Hadley and suppose he were to come and demand again that she submit. Could she refuse? Had she become, and in spite of herself, the property of the man?