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The woman opened her door, got inside, and slammed it shut.

For a half minute Nessie continued clinging to the fence. Within the brief space of this scene the day, the village, her position in society had abruptly shifted about. A terrible sensation of nightmare fell upon her. Zed had told! She recalled her terrifying persistent dream of passing through an open door only to have it vanish behind her.

For the first time she realized that she was what the village called an "unchaste woman." She really was one. And the tragedy of it was, she seemed to herself to be precisely as she had always been. There was not a straw’s difference between Nessie Sutton pure and Nessie Sutton impure. Oh, if the village only could know that she was exactly the same!

She turned away and moved mechanically along the shabby street with a beating heart. She got out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes covertly, and a little later dabbed her cheeks with her powder puff to remove the stain. She tried to walk on down to the Grand in a natural manner, but as she went she began wondering anxiously how many of the villagers had heard the rumour. For the first time she became nervously sensitive to the people she met on the street. She felt as if she were listening intently to hear what they thought of her. When she reached the business section she observed a curious zone of quiet formed about her as she walked. Everyone stopped talking and watched her intently. Once she saw a man motion to his companion with his eyes, and this companion very slowly and very casually turned and watched Nessie pass. It was an eerie sensation. The shabby village street stretched out before her to an amazing length. It was crowded with people, all silent, all watching. She was running a gauntlet of eyes, eyes, eyes, all staring at her. She thought of her dream again, with horror. She was walking physically into it.

The girl made a last effort to move along to her work as if nothing had happened, but her nerves were being slowly