She was not conscious of anger; she felt only an indifferent weariness--a nervous shrinking from the brutality of his rage. His face as she had seen it rose suddenly before her, and she put her hand to her eyes as if to shut out the sight. She saw the clear streak of the highway, the gray pasture, the solitary star overhanging the horizon, and she felt the dead leaves blown against her cheek from denuded trees far distant. And lighted by a glare of memory she saw his face--she saw the convulsed features, the furrow that cleft the forehead like a seam, the heavy brows bent above the half-closed eyes, the spasmodic working of the drawn mouth. She saw the man in whom, for its brief instant, evil was triumphant--in whom that self-poise, which had been to her as the secret of his strength, was tumultuously overthrown. A great fatigue weighed upon her, as if she had emerged, defeated, from a physical contest. Her hands trembled, and something throbbed in her temple like an imprisoned bird. As she sat in the silence, the door opened softly and Miss Chris came in, bearing a lamp in her hand. "Eugie," she said, peering into the darkness, "are you there?" Eugenia lowered the window and came over to the hearth rug, where she stood blinking from the sudden glare of the lamp. There were some half-extinguished embers amid the ashes in the fireplace, and she threw on fresh wood, watching while it caught and blazed up lightly over the old brass andirons. Miss Chris set the lamp on the table and came over to the fire. She carried her key basket in her hand, and the keys jingled as she moved. Her smooth, florid face had a fine moisture over it that showed like dew on a well-sunned peach. "You aren't worrying about Nick Burr, Eugie," she said with the amiable bluntness which belonged to her. "I wouldn't let it worry me if I were you." Eugenia turned with a flash of pride. "No, I am not worrying about him," she answered. Miss Chris lifted a vase from the mantel-piece, dusted the spot where it had stood, and replaced it carefully. "Of course, I know you've seen a good deal of him of late," she went on; "but, as I told Tom, I knew it was nothing more than your being playmates together. He's a good boy, and I don't believe that scandal about him any more than I would about Bernard; but he's Amos Burr's son, after all, though he has raised himself a long way above him, and, as poor Aunt Griselda used to say, 'When all's said and done, a Battle's a Battle.'" Eugenia was looking into the fire. "Yes," she repeated slowly, "a Battle's a Battle, after all."