Meeting the Outside. [_Moving nearer; speaking more personally._] I know why you came here. To this house that had been given up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are true beside the things you want to see. MRS. PATRICK How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty years? ALLIE MAYO Outside. Twenty years. That’s why I know how brave _they_ are. [_Indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different._] You’ll not find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_! MRS. PATRICK [_Swiftly rising._] You’re a cruel woman--a hard, insolent woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I didn’t _go_ to the Outside. I was left there. I’m only--trying to get along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to take me--take me to hurt me. That’s why I couldn’t bear--[_She looks at the closed door_] things that made me know I feel. You haven’t felt for so long you don’t know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you’d take _that_ from me--[_Looking now toward the edge of the woods_] the thing that made me know they would be buried in my heart--those things I can’t _live_ and know I feel. You’re more cruel than the sea! “But other things are true beside the things you want to see!” Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. [_As if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says._] What would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted? ALLIE MAYO I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold life behind me-- [_A slight gesture toward MRS. PATRICK._ MRS. PATRICK [_Stepping back._] You call what you are life? [_Laughs._] Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand! ALLIE MAYO [_Under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty._] Ugly! MRS. PATRICK [_Passionately._] I have _known_ life. I have known _life_. You’re like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life. ALLIE MAYO A harbor far at sea. [_Raises her arm, curves it in as if around something she loves._] Land that encloses and gives shelter from storm. MRS. PATRICK [_Facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else out._] Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life. ALLIE MAYO Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line! Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing. MRS. PATRICK It loses. ALLIE MAYO It wins. MRS. PATRICK The farthest life is buried. ALLIE MAYO