hile you were gone! Can't you get them out, Paul, can't you?

_Paul._ Where is Olive?

_Phoebe._ She is in her chamber. She stays there all the time at
prayer. Olive! Olive! Paul is come.

[_Calls at the foot of chamber stairs._

_Paul._ Olive!

Olive _comes slowly down the stairs and enters._

_Paul_ (_seizing her in his arms_). Oh, my poor lass, what is this
that hath come to thee?

_Olive._ This is what thou feared when we parted, Paul, and more.

_Paul._ I but heard of it as I came through Salem on my way hither.
Oh, 'tis devilish work!

_Olive._ They let me loose, but father and mother are in Salem
jail.

_Paul._ Poor lass!

_Olive._ Can you do naught to help them, Paul?

_Paul._ Olive, I will help them, if there be any justice or
unclouded minds left in the colony.

_Olive._ Thou art in truth here, Paul; it is thy voice.

_Paul._ Whose voice should it be, dear heart?

_Olive._ I know not. For a week I have thought I heard so many
voices. The air seemed full of voices a-calling me, but I heeded
them not, Paul. I kept all the time at prayer and heeded them not.

_Paul._ Of course thou didst not. There were no voices to heed.

_Olive._ Sometimes I thought I heard birds twittering, and
sometimes I thought there was something black at my elbow, and in
the night-time faces at my window. Paul, was there aught there?

_Paul._ No, no; there was naught there. Birds and black beasts and
faces! This be all folly, Olive!

_Olive._ They saw a black man by my side in the meeting-house--Ann
saw him. She cried out that the cape I gave her put her to dreadful
torment. Can I have been a witch unknowingly, and so done this great
evil to my father and mother? Tell me, Paul.

_Paul._ Call up thy wits, Olive! I tell thee thou art no witch.
There was no black man at thy side in the meeting-house. Black man!
I would one would verily lay hands on that lying hussy. Thou art no
witch.

[Phoebe _rushes to_ Olive, _and clings to her, sobbing._

_Phoebe._ You are not a witch, Olive. You are not. If Ann says so I
will pinch her and scratch her. I will! yes, I will--I will scratch
her till the blood runs. You are not a witch. I was the one that got
them into jail. I stuck pins into my doll, but I have made up for it
now. They'll be let out. Don't cry, Olive.

_Nancy._ Don't you fret yourself, Olive. I trow there's no
witch-mark on you. It's Goody Bishop in her fine silk hood that's at
the bottom o