refusing at last to be denied. She opened the top drawer of the chest,
the drawer in which Hannah, breaking tradition, had put the Bumpus
genealogy. Edward had never kept it there. Would the other things be in
place? Groping with her hands in the left-hand corner, her fingers
clasped exultantly something heavy, something wrapped carefully in layers
of flannel. She had feared her father might have taken it to the mill!
She drew it out, unwound the flannel, and held to the light an
old-fashioned revolver, the grease glistening along its barrel. She
remembered, too, that the cartridges had lain beside it, and thrusting
her hand once more into the drawer found the box, extracting several, and
replacing the rest, closed the drawer, and crept through the dining-room
to her bedroom, where she lit the gas in order to examine the weapon
--finally contriving, more by accident than skill, to break it. The
cartridges, of course, fitted into the empty cylinder. But before
inserting them she closed the pistol once more, cocked it, and held it
out. Her arm trembled violently as she pulled the trigger. Could she do
it? As though to refute this doubt of her ability to carry out an act
determined upon, she broke the weapon once more, loaded and closed it,
and thrust it in the pocket of her coat. Then, washing the grease from
her hands, she put on her gloves, and was about to turn out the light
when she saw reflected in the glass the red button of the I.W.W. still
pinned on her coat. This she tore off, and flung on the bureau.

When she had kissed her mother, when she had stood hesitatingly in the
darkness of the familiar front bedroom in the presence of unsummoned
memories of a home she had believed herself to resent and despise, she
had nearly faltered. But once in the street, this weakness suddenly
vanished, was replaced by a sense of wrong that now took complete and
furious possession of her, driving her like a gale at her back. She
scarcely felt on her face the fine rain that had begun to fall once more.