"Yes, it's awful." Alys stared at the floor, but although her words might have been uttered by any of the ladies present, her tone was almost conventional. No one noticed this defection, however, and Mrs. Battle--after Mrs. Gifning had tiptoed to all the doors, opened them suddenly and closed them again,--proceeded in so low a tone that there was an immediate hitching of chairs over the Persian rug: "What we were debating when you came in, Alys, was whether--oh, it's too awful!--she did it or not. Did she or didn't she? She has a perfectly beautiful character--but the provocation! Few women have been tried more severely. And we all know what human nature is under the influence of sudden tremendous passion." Mrs. Battle, who never had been ruffled by any sort of passion, leaned against the high back of her chair, and elevated her eyebrows and one corner of her mouth. "Could such a crime have been unpremeditated?" asked Alys. "You forget that whoever did it was waiting in the grove for Balfame to come home from Sam's, and evidently timed to shoot as he reached the gate." "Passion, my dear child," said Mrs. Bascom, wife of the Justice for Brabant, speaking softly and with some diffidence, for she disliked the word, "can endure for quite a while once the blood is up and pounding in the head. It would take a good deal to work up dear Enid, but when a woman like that does rise to the pitch under many and abominable provocations, well, I guess she could stay at that pitch a good bit longer than all of us put together. I've thought of nothing else for three days and nights,--the Judge won't discuss it with me,--and I feel convinced that she did it." "So have and so am I," contributed Mrs. Battle, sepulchrally. "I'm afraid she did!" Mrs. Gifning heaved an abysmal sigh. "I suspected it when I consulted her about her mourning. She was much too cool. A woman who could think of two kinds of blouses she wanted the very morning after the tragedy, and he not out of the house, must have been exercising a suspicious restraint or else have reverted to the cold-bloodedness with which she planned the deed." "Dear Lottie, you are so psychological," murmured Mrs. Frew admiringly; but Mrs. Battle interrupted sharply: "I maintain that she did it in a moment of overwhelming passion. She would be inexcusable if she had done it in cold blood." "Well, of course I didn't mean that!" said Mrs. Gifning with asperity. "I guess I'm as fond of Enid Balfame as anybody in this room, and I guess I know what she must have gone through. What I really meant was that she has more courage than most folks." "Oh, that indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Lequer, who was quite happy with her husband, the fashionable doctor of Brabant. "Matrimony is a terrible trial at best, and it's a wonder more women don't--well, it's too horrible to say. But I'm afraid--well, you know."