Abigail doesn't actually show up in Act IV, but it is because she has run away. Parris admits to Danforth and Hathorne that Abigail and Mercy Lewis have disappeared along with all the savings he had stored away. Parris is left penniless and in tears. Although the flight of the girls serves as evidence that their condemnation of townspeople was simply a hoax, Parris states that they must have left because they were afraid of rebellion. The judges are disturbed by the revelation of the girls' flight, but not enough to stop the proceedings. They have killed too many people under the charge of witchcraft for them to stop moving forward. They refuse to even consider that fact that they could have been wrong in all that they had done. There arrogance is the cause of Proctor's death in the end. Elizabeth is saved, however, by her pregnancy. By the time the baby is born, the hysteria has finally ended.
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