Proctor enters with lantern, glowing behind him, then halts, holding lantern raised. Abigail appears with a wrap over her nightgown, her hair down. A moment of questioning silence.

PROCTOR, searching: I must speak with you, Abigail. She does not move, staring at him. Will you sit?

ABIGAIL: How do you come?

PROCTOR: Friendly.

ABIGAIL, glancing about: I don’t like the woods at night. Pray you, stand closer. He comes closer to her. I knew it must be you. When I heard the pebbles on the window, before I opened up my eyes I knew. Sits on log. I thought you would come a good time sooner.

PROCTOR: I had thought to come many times.

ABIGAIL: Why didn’t you? I am so alone in the world now.

PROCTOR, as a fact, not bitterly: Are you! I’ve heard that people ride a hundred mile to see your face these days.

ABIGAIL: Aye, my face. Can you see my face?

PROCTOR, holds the lantern to her face: Then you’re troubled?

ABIGAIL: Have you come to mock me?

PROCTOR, sets lantern on ground. Sits next to her: No, no, but I hear only that you go to the tavern every night, and play shovelboard with the Deputy Governor, and they give you cider.

ABIGAIL: I have once or twice played the shovelboard. But I have no joy in it.

PROCTOR: This is a surprise, Abby. I’d thought to find you gayer than this. I’m told a troop of boys go step for step with you wherever you walk these days.

ABIGAIL: Aye, they do. But I have only lewd looks from the boys.

PROCTOR: And you like that not?

ABIGAIL: I cannot bear lewd looks no more, John. My spirit’s changed entirely. I ought be given Godly looks when I suffer for them as I do.

PROCTOR: Oh? How do you suffer, Abby?

ABIGAIL, pulls up dress: Why, look at my leg. I’m holes all over from their damned needles and pins. Touching her stomach: The jab your wife gave me’s not healed yet, y’know.

PROCTOR, seeing her madness now: Oh, it isn’t.

ABIGAIL: I think sometimes she pricks it open again while I sleep.

PROCTOR: Ah?

ABIGAIL: And George Jacobs—sliding up her sleeve—he comes again and again and raps me with his stick—the same spot every night all this week. Look at the lump I have.

PROCTOR: Abby—George Jacobs is in the jail all this month.

ABIGAIL: Thank God he is, and bless the day he hangs and lets me sleep in peace again! Oh, John, the world’s so full of hypocrites! Astonished, outraged: They pray in jail! I’m told they all pray in jail!

PROCTOR: They may not pray?

ABIGAIL: And torture me in my bed while sacred words are comin’ from their mouths? Oh, it will need God Himself to cleanse this town properly!

PROCTOR: Abby—you mean to cry out still others?

ABIGAIL: If I live, if I am not murdered, I surely will, until the last hypocrite is dead.

PROCTOR: Then there is no good?

ABIGAIL: Aye, there is one. You are good.

PROCTOR: Am I! How am I good?

ABIGAIL: Why, you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away. It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman dare call me wicked any more but I knew my answer. I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame because some old Rebecca called me loose. And then you burned my ignorance away. As bare as some December tree I saw them all—walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again! She kisses his hand. You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house, a—He rises, backs away, amazed. Why are you cold?

PROCTOR: My wife goes to trial in the morning, Abigail.

ABIGAIL, distantly: Your wife?

PROCTOR: Surely you knew of it?

ABIGAIL: I do remember it now. How—how—Is she well?

PROCTOR: As well as she may be, thirty-six days in that place.

ABIGAIL: You said you came friendly.

PROCTOR: She will not be condemned, Abby.

ABIGAIL: You brought me from my bed to speak of her?

PROCTOR: I come to tell you, Abby, what I will do tomorrow in the court. I would not take you by surprise, but give you all good time to think on what to do to save yourself.

ABIGAIL: Save myself!

PROCTOR: If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin you, Abby.

ABIGAIL, her voice small—astonished: How—ruin me?

PROCTOR: I have rocky proof in documents that you knew that poppet were none of my wife’s; and that you yourself bade Mary Warren stab that needle into it.

ABIGAIL—a wildness stirs in her, a child is standing here who is unutterably frustrated, denied her wish, but she is still grasping for her wits: I bade Mary Warren—?

PROCTOR: You know what you do, you are not so mad!

ABIGAIL: Oh, hypocrites! Have you won him, too? John, why do you let them send you?

PROCTOR: I warn you, Abby!

ABIGAIL: They send you! They steal your honesty and—

PROCTOR: I have found my honesty!

ABIGAIL: No, this is your wife pleading, your sniveling, envious wife! This is Rebecca’s voice, Martha Corey’s voice. You were no hypocrite!

PROCTOR: I will prove you for the fraud you are!

ABIGAIL: And if they ask you why Abigail would ever do so murderous a deed, what will you tell them?

PROCTOR: I will tell them why.

ABIGAIL: What will you tell? You will confess to fornication? In the court?

PROCTOR: If you will have it so, so I will tell it! She utters a disbelieving laugh. I say I will! She laughs louder, now with more assurance he will never do it. He shakes her roughly. If you can still hear, hear this! Can you hear! She is trembling, staring up at him as though he were out of his mind. You will tell the court you are blind to spirits; you cannot see them any more, and you will never cry witchery again, or I will make you famous for the whore you are!

ABIGAIL, grabs him: Never in this world! I know you, John—you are this moment singing secret hallelujahs that your wife will hang!

PROCTOR, throws her down: You mad, you murderous bitch!

ABIGAIL: Oh, how hard it is when pretense falls! But it falls, it falls! She wraps herself up as though to go. You have done your duty by her. I hope it is your last hypocrisy. I pray you will come again with sweeter news for me. I know you will—now that your duty’s done. Good night, John. She is backing away, raising her hand in farewell. Fear naught. I will save you tomorrow. As she turns and goes: From yourself I will save you. She is gone. Proctor is left alone, amazed, in terror. He takes up his lantern and slowly exits.