ight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.)

MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_)
Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand!

ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_)
Ugly!

MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_.
You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if
around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from
storm.

MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else
out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was
ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line!
Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights
for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing.

MRS PATRICK: It loses.

ALLIE MAYO: It wins.

MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.

ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then,
as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs
will come when you will want to know that it is Spring.

(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They
have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into
the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open
the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A
moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man
away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You
savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it
mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken
through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_)
Meeting the Outside!

(_It grows in her as_ CURTAIN _lowers slowly_.)

THE VERGE

First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921.

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ANTHONY

HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband

HATTIE, The maid

CLAIRE

DICK, Richard Demming

TOM EDGEWORTHY

ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter

ADELAIDE, Claire's sister

DR EMMONS

ACT I

_The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light
from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This
slants up and strikes the l