MRS PATRICK: (with a 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.)