hers; that was all
dead now, had been of no avail against this nothingness. Some day Elly
would lie like that, and all that she had done for Elly, or could do for
her, would be only a pinch of ashes. If she, if Cousin Hetty, if Cousin
Hetty's mother, if Elly, if all of them, took hotly whatever the hours
had to give, they could not more certainly be brought to nothingness and
oblivion in the end. . . .

Those dreams of her . . . being one with a great current, sweeping forward
. . . what pitiful delusions! . . . There was nothing that swept forward.
There were only futile storms of froth and excitement that whirled you
about to no end, one after another. One died down and left you becalmed
and stagnant, and another rose. And that would die down in its turn.
Until at the end, shipwreck, and a sinking to this darkly silent abyss.

CHAPTER XX

A PRIMAEVAL HERITAGE

July 21. Evening.

Cousin Hetty lay coldly dead; and Marise felt herself blown upon by an
icy breath that froze her numb. The doctor had come and gone, queerly,
and bustlingly alive and full of talk and explanations; Agnes had come
back and, silently weeping, had walked endlessly and aimlessly around
the house, with a broom in her idle hand; one after another of the
neighbors had come and gone, queerly alive as usual, they too, for all
their hushed and awkward manners; Neale had come, seeming to feel that
cold breath as little as the others.

And now Neale was gone, after everything had been decided, all the
incredibly multitudinous details that must be decided. The funeral was
set for the day after tomorrow, and until then, everything in
everybody's life was to stop stock-still, as a matter of course. Because
Agnes was in terror of being left alone for an instant, Marise would not
even leave the house until after the funeral, and one of the thousand
petty unescapable details she and Neale had talked of in the hushed
voice which the house imposed on all in it, was the decision as to which
dress and hat were to be sent to her from the wardrobe at home.

She was to stay there with Agnes, she, who was all the family old Cousin
Hetty had left, for the last watch over what lay up there on the bed in
her bedroom. Neale would look out for the children (there was no one
else for the moment, Toucle was gone, Eugenia quite useless), would
telegraph the few old friends who would care to know the news, would
see Mr. Bayweather about the funeral, would telep