came a member
of the Winesburg Methodist Church. Alice joined the
church because she had become frightened by the
loneliness of her position in life. Her mother's second
marriage had emphasized her isolation. "I am becoming
old and queer. If Ned comes he will not want me. In the
city where he is living men are perpetually young.
There is so much going on that they do not have time to
grow old," she told herself with a grim little smile,
and went resolutely about the business of becoming
acquainted with people. Every Thursday evening when the
store had closed she went to a prayer meeting in the
basement of the church and on Sunday evening attended a
meeting of an organization called The Epworth League.

When Will Hurley, a middle-aged man who clerked in a
drug store and who also belonged to the church, offered
to walk home with her she did not protest. "Of course I
will not let him make a practice of being with me, but
if he comes to see me once in a long time there can be
no harm in that," she told herself, still determined in
her loyalty to Ned Currie.

Without realizing what was happening, Alice was trying
feebly at first, but with growing determination, to get
a new hold upon life. Beside the drug clerk she walked
in silence, but sometimes in the darkness as they went
stolidly along she put out her hand and touched softly
the folds of his coat. When he left her at the gate
before her mother's house she did not go indoors, but
stood for a moment by the door. She wanted to call to
the drug clerk, to ask him to sit with her in the
darkness on the porch before the house, but was afraid
he would not understand. "It is not him that I want,"
she told herself; "I want to avoid being so much alone.
If I am not careful I will grow unaccustomed to being
with people."

* * *

During the early fall of her twenty-seventh year a
passionate restlessness took possession of Alice. She
could not bear to be in the company of the drug clerk,
and when, in the evening, he came to walk with her she
sent him away. Her mind became intensely active and
when, weary from the long hours of standing behind the
counter in the store, she went home and crawled into
bed, she could not sleep. With staring eyes she looked
into the darkness. Her imagination, like a child
awakened from long sleep, played about the room. Deep
within her there was something that would not be
cheated by phantasies and that demanded some