se relentless facts which hung one from another
with their horrible enchaining progression. No, she had been dreaming.
It was all preposterous!

The heat wavered up from the hot earth in visible pulsations and there
pulsed through her similar rhythmic waves of feeling; the beginning . . .
what Eugenia had said, had said that _Neale had told her_ . . . what Mrs.
Powers had said, "Lots of men that run mills do that sort of thing" . . .
what the stenographer had said . . . the name on the envelope . . .
_suppose it should be true_.

She was at Cousin Hetty's door now; a give-and-take of women's voices
sounding within. "Here's Mrs. Crittenden back. Come on, Nelly, we better
be going. There's all the work to do."

Marise went in and sat down, looking at them with stony indifference, at
'Gene this time as well as at the women. The drawn sickness of his ashy
face did not move her in the least now. What did she care what he did,
what anyone did, till she knew whether she had ever had Neale or not?
The women's chatter sounded remote and foolish in her ears.

If Neale had done that . . . if that was the man he was . . . but of course
it was preposterous, and she had been dreaming. What was that that
Eugenia had said? The descent into hell began again step by step.

The Powers went out, the old woman still talking, chattering, as if
anything mattered now.

After they were gone, Agnes ran to the door calling, "Mis' Powers! You
forgot your pan and towel after all!" And there was Mrs. Powers again,
talking, talking.

She had been saying something that needed an answer apparently, for now
she stood waiting, expectant.

"What was that, Mrs. Powers? I was thinking of something else."

"I was just tellin' you that there's going to be a big change over to
our house. 'Gene, he told Nelly, as he was setting here waiting for you,
how he was going to cut down the big pine one of these days, like she
always wanted him to. You know, the one that shades the house so.
'Gene's grandfather planted it, and he's always set the greatest store
by it. Used to say he'd just as soon cut his grandmother's throat as
chop it down. But Nelly, she's all housekeeper and she never did like
the musty way the shade makes our best room smell. I never thought to
see the day 'Gene would give in to her about that. He's gi'n in to her
about everything else though. Only last night he was tellin' her, he was
going to take something out'n the savings-bank and bu