At the beginning of Act One, Reverend Parris and Abigail are alone with Betty Parris in Betty's bedroom. Her eyes are closed, and she is unable to wake up. Just the night before, Parris says that his "daughter and [his] niece [he] discovered dancing like heathen in the forest" and Tituba "swaying like a dumb beast over that fire." Further, "[he] thought [he] saw--someone naked running through the trees!" The idea that these girls could have been engaging in some kind of witchcraft is strengthened by the fact that Tituba, Parris's Barbadian slave, was chanting over a fire, and certainly, an adolescent girl's public nakedness would have been considered reprehensible and suspicious. Abigail claims that Betty is only ill because she was startled when her father leaped in on them suddenly, but Parris fears that the reality is much worse.

He says to Abigail, "If you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it." In other words, he wants to know if the girls were conjuring spirits, not because he is concerned that something evil has a hold on his daughter, but because he feels that his status in town is precarious, and if his political enemies find out that his family was involved in any kind of illegal activity, it will spell the end of his reputation and career.