Mrs. Denbigh looked up with a start. Still stooped, still hatchet-faced, but grayer and more shrunken, she stood there, her sleeves rolled from her thin forearms, her forehead wet by present labor, her mouth set hard by labors gone. "Get out o' here!" she said. "Mom!" Mary raised and spread her arms in quick petitioning, and then, in that stranger, Mrs. Denbigh recognized her child. "_You?_" she cried. She dashed her damp hands to her checkered apron; she stepped toward her daughter with her own arms wide. She bent to kiss her--and she drew as suddenly away. "There's liquor on your breath!" she gasped. "I know," said Mary, her voice low and trembling. "I--I ain't been well, mom." The kiss was given, but less abandonedly than it had promised, and, as the mother drew away, her keen eyes searched the girl from face to feet. Over the multitude of maternal questions there rose the three for which Mary was least prepared. "Mary--what is it? Where is he? Didn't he treat you right?" They caught the girl at her weakest point. "Who?" she asked. "Who?"--Mrs. Denbigh's eyes grew stern again.--"Who? You needn't say no more than that still! I ought to have knowed when I seen you. Nobody could look at you yet and not know. Why, you're--you're _old_! Your things are worn out. You----" her tone increased to loud accusations. "Where did you get them clothes?" Mary's lips faltered. "I bought 'em," she said. "Did anybody see you come in here?" "I don't know.--No, nobody did." "Thank God for that!" Mrs. Denbigh pointed a long, gnarled finger at her daughter. She pointed it at the bedraggled hat, still bearing traces of a finery too pronounced for that small town. She pointed to the waist and to the skirt. "It's true, then!" she cried. "It's true, then! You've been a bad woman!" In the doorway Mary swayed. She leaned heavily against the wall. She was too tired to lie. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes," her mother echoed; "yes--an' you own up to it! The whole town said it; your pop said it; they all told me yet--an' I stood up fer you; I showed 'em your letter; I says you was married; I kep' on believin' you'd write; I stuck to it--an' now you come here to shame me. You come here when you're worn out--when no one else'll have you--you come here, brazen, not carin' still, a bad woman--_a bad woman_--an' I guess you think I'll take you in!" Her poor face writhed. Her dim eyes shot fire. Her withered breasts rose and fell in a spasm of indignation and wounded pride. Mary, still leaning against the kitchen wall, put out her hands as if to ward away a blow. "Don't, mom," she said. "Please don't." "I will! I've a mind to beat you. I'd like to know what possessed you to flaunt yourself in this place. You can't stay here. You can't stay in this house that you've shamed still, an' you can't stay in this town." "Mom!"