The whole atmosphere of the room, contrasted with that of former years, is one of an habitual poverty too hopelessly resigned to he any longer ashamed or even conscious of itself.
At the rise of the curtain Ruth is discovered sitting by the stove, with hands outstretched to the warmth as if the air in the room were damp and cold. A heavy shawl is wrapped about her shoulders, half-concealing her dress of deep mourning. She has aged horribly. Her pale, deeply lined face has the stony lack of expression of one to whom nothing more can ever happen, whose capacity for emotion has been exhausted. When she speaks her voice is without timbre, low and monotonous. The negligent disorder of her dress, the slovenly arrangement of her hair, now streaked with grey, her muddied shoes run down at the heel, give full evidence of the apathy in which she lives.
Her mother is asleep in her wheel chair beside the stove toward the rear, wrapped up in a blanket.
There is a sound from the open bedroom door in the rear as if someone were getting out of bed. Ruth turns in that direction with a look of dull annoyance. A moment later Robert appears in the doorway, leaning weakly against it for support. His hair is long and unkempt, his face and body emaciated. There are bright patches of crimson over his cheek bones and his eyes are
