She remained silent, and he thought best to add a word or so, but could not, though he tried. Mary Warren's face had colored painfully.
"I suppose they've told you—I suppose everybody knows all about that—that insane thing I did, coming out here. Well, I was desperate, that's all. Yet it seems there are good people left in the world. You are all good people. If only I could see; so I could tell what to do. Then maybe I could earn my living, someway—if I have to live.
"Good-hearted, isn't he—Mr. Gage?" She nodded with a woman's confident intuition as she went on. "He didn't cast me out. What can I do to repay him?"
He could make no answer.
"Little to give him, Doctor—but of course, if he could—in any sort of justice—accept—accept——"
Doctor Barnes suddenly reached out a hand and pushed her hair back from her forehead. "I wouldn't," said he. "Please don't. Take things easy for a little while."
She turned her dark and sightless eyes upon him. "No!" said she. "That isn't the way we do in my family. We don't take things easy."
"Has he said anything to you?" asked Doctor Barnes after a long time. "I have very much reluctance to ask."
"He's too much of a man," she said. "No, not yet. It was a sort of bargain, even if we didn't say so outright. 'Object, matrimony!' I came out here with my eyes open. But now God has closed them.… Will you tell me the truth?"
"Yes."