COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. (_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just the-- (MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can not help saying it_.) MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box. MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly_)--hurt him. MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too. MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird. MRS HALE: I knew John Wright. MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him. MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him. (_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.) MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't _know_. MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, after the bird was still. MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other then-- MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking for the evidence? MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale. MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that? MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.