y, and pushed her into a chair, running for water. At the
sound, Agnes came trotting, and showed a scared rabbit-like face. "She's
just beat out with the shock of Miss Hetty's going off so sudden,"
explained Mrs. Powers to Agnes.

Marise got to her feet angrily. She had entirely forgotten that Cousin
Hetty was dead, or that she was in her house. She was shocked that for a
moment she had relaxed her steady pressure against that opening door.
She flung herself against it now. What could she do next?

Instantly, clearly, as though she had heard someone saying it to her,
she thought, "Why, of course, all I have to do is to go and ask Neale
about it!"

It was so simple. Somehow, of course, Neale could give the answer she
must have. Why had she not thought of that the instant Eugenia had begun
to speak?

She drank the glass of water Agnes gave her and said, "Mrs. Powers,
could you do something for me? I promised I would stay here till the
funeral and I know Agnes is afraid to stay alone. Would you mind waiting
here for perhaps half an hour till I could get to the mill and back?
There is something important I must see to."

Mrs. Powers hesitated. "Well now, Mis' Crittenden, there ain't nothing I
wouldn't do for you. But I'm kind o' _funny_ about dead folks. I don't
believe I'd be much good to Agnes because I feel just the way she does.
But I'll run over to the house and get Nelly and 'Gene to come. I guess
the four of us together won't be nervous about staying. 'Gene ain't
workin' today. He got a sunstroke or something yesterday, in the sun,
cultivatin' his corn and he don't feel just right in his head, he says."

She went out of the door as she spoke, calling over her shoulder, "I
wun't be gone long."

Marise sat down again, there in the pantry, leaned her head against the
door and looked steadily at the shelves before her, full of dishes and
jars and bottles and empty jelly glasses. In her mind there was only one
thing, a fixed resolve not to think at all, of anything, until she had
been to Neale's office and had Neale explain it to her. Surely he would
not have started on that trip whatever it was. It was so early still.
She must not think about it at all, until she had asked Neale. Eugenia
had probably made a mistake about the name. Even if Neale had gone she
would be able to ask about the name and find that Eugenia had made a
mistake. That would make everything all right. Of course Eugenia had
made a mistake about