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 buy her an organ for Addie to learn to play on, that Nelly always hankered after. Seems 'sthough he can't do enough for Nelly, don't it?" Marise looked at her coldly, incapable of paying enough attention to her to make any comment on what she said. Let them cut down all the trees in the valley, and each other's throats into the bargain, if Neale had . . . if there had never been her Neale, the Neale she thought she had been living with, all these years. Mrs. Powers had gone finally, and the house was silent at last, so silent that she could now hear quite clearly, as though Eugenia still sat there, what the sweet musical voice was saying over and over. Why had they gone away and left her alone to face this deadly peril which advanced on her step by step without mercy, time after time? Now there was nothing to do but to wait and stand it off. * * * * * She was sitting in the same chair, her umbrella still in her hand, waiting, when Agnes came in to say that she had lunch ready. She turned eyes of astonished anger and rebuke on her. "I don't want anything to eat," she said in so strange a voice that Agnes crept back to the kitchen, shuffling and scared.