[_To herself._] If I could say that, I can say more. [_Looking at the 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 not said a word I didn’t have to say. [_She has become almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper._] The ice that caught Jim--caught me. [_A moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To MRS. PATRICK simply._] It’s not the way. [_A sudden change._] You’re not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead! MRS. PATRICK [_With the cry of the hurt._] Dead? My husband’s not _dead_. ALLIE MAYO He’s _not_? [_Slowly understands._] Oh. [_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps outside._ ALLIE MAYO [_Almost failing to do it._] Wait. MRS. PATRICK Wait? Don’t you think you’ve said enough? They told me you didn’t say an unnecessary word! ALLIE MAYO I don’t. MRS. PATRICK And you can see, I should think, that you’ve bungled into things you know nothing about! [_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is doing._ ALLIE MAYO [_Slowly._] When you keep still for twenty years you know--things you didn’t know you knew. I know why you’re doing that. [_She looks up at her, startled._] Don’t bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow. [_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._ ALLIE MAYO