Marise looked out, astonished. To her eyes the tree stood as massively firm as she had ever seen it. But 'Gene's attitude was of strained, expectant certainty: he stood near Nelly and as she looked up at the tree, he looked at her. At that look Marise felt the cold perspiration on her own temples. Nelly stepped sideways a little, tipping her head to see, and cried out, "Yes, I see it beginning to slant. How _slow_ it goes! "It'll go fast enough in a minute," said 'Gene. Of what followed, not an instant ever had for Marise the quality of reality. It always remained for her a superb and hideous dream, something symbolical, glorious, and horrible which had taken place in her brain, not in the lives of human beings. * * * * * Nelly, . . . looking down suddenly to see where the tree would fall, crying out, "Oh, I left my hat where it'll . . ." and darting, light as a feather, towards it. 'Gene, making a great futile gesture to stop her, as she passed him, shouting at her, with a horrified glance up at the slowly leaning tree, "Come back! Come back!" Nelly on the brush-pile, her hat in her hand, whirling to return, supple and swift, suddenly caught by the heel and flung headlong . . . up again in an instant, and falling again, to her knees this time. Up once more with a desperate haste, writhing and pulling at her shoe, held by its high heel, deep between the knotty poles. 'Gene, bounding from his place of safety, there at her feet, tearing in a frenzy at the poles, at her shoe. . . . Above them the great tree bearing down on them the solemn vengeful shadow of its fall. Someone was screaming. It was Nelly. She was screaming, "'Gene! 'Gene! 'Gene!" her face shrunken in terror, her white lips open. * * * * * And then, that last gesture of 'Gene's when he took Nelly into his great arms, closely, hiding her face on his shoulder, as the huge tree, roaring downward, bore them both to the earth, forever. CHAPTER XXVIII TWO GOOD-BYES August 10. Marise welcomed the bother about the details of Eugenia's departure and Mr. Welles', and flung herself into them with a frightened desire for something that would drown out the roaring wind of tragedy which filled her ears in every pause of the day's activities, and woke her up at night out of the soundest sleep. Night after night, she found herself sitting up in bed, her night-gown and hair damp with perspiration, Nelly's scream ringing knife-like in her ears. Then, rigid and wide-eyed she saw it all again, what had happened in those thirty seconds which had summed up and ended the lives of 'Gene and Nelly.