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repentance, a new Annie-Belle sprang up, for whom the past did not exist.
                She would have said to him: "It did not signify, my darling; I only did it with my brother, we were alone together under the vast sky that made us scared and so we clung together and what happened, happened." But she knew she must not say that, that the most natural love of all was just precisely the one she must not acknowledge. To lie down on the prairie with a passing stranger was one thing. To lie down with her father's son was another. So she kept silent. And when she looked at her husband, she saw, not herself, but someone who might, in time, grow even more precious.
                The next night, in spite of the baby, they did it, and his mother wanted to murder her and refused to get the breakfast for this prostitute, but Annie-Belle served them, put on an apron, cut the ham and cooked it, then scrubbed the floor with such humility, such evidence of gratitude that the older woman kept her mouth shut, her narrow lips tight as a trap, but she kept them shut for if there was one thing she feared, it was the atrocious gentleness of her menfolk. And. So.
     
                Johnny came to the town, hungering after her; the gates of Paradise slammed shut in his face. He haunted the backyard of the Minister's house, hid in the sweetbrier, watched the candle in their room go out and still he could not imagine it, that she might do it with another man. But. She did.
                At the store, all gossip ceased when she came in; all eyes turned towards Her. The old men chewing tobacco spat brown streams when she walked past. The women's faces veiled with disapproval. She was so young, so unaccustomed to people. They talked, her husband and she; they would go, just go, out west, still further, west as far as the place where the ocean Starts again, perhaps. With his schooling, he could get some clerking job or other. She would bear her child and he would love it. Then she would bear their children.
                "Yes," she said. "We shall do that," she said.
     
                                    EXTERIOR. FARMHOUSE. DAY
                                    Annie-Belle drives up in trap.
                                    Johnny comes out on porch, in shirt-sleeves, bottle in hand.
                                    Takes her reins. But she doesn't get down from the trap.
     
                                    ANNIE-BELLE : Where's Daddy?
     
                                    Johnny gestures towards the prairie.
     
                                    ANNIE-BELLE (not looking at Johnny): Got something to tell him.
     
                                    (Close up) Johnny.
     
                                    JOHNNY: Ain't you got nothing to tell me?
     
                                    (Close up) Annie-Belle.
     
                                    ANNIE-BELLE : Reckon I ain't.
     
                                    (Close up) Johnny.
     
                                    JOHNNY : Get down and visit a while, at least.
     
                                    (Close up) Annie-Belle.
     
                                    ANNIE-BELLE : Can't hardly spare the time.
     
                                    (Close up) Johnny and Annie-Belle.
     
                                    JOHNNY : Got to scurry back, get your husband's dinner, is that it?