Marise was surprised to hear Eugenia’s voice again, “Marise, I stepped back to ask you if there are any errands I could do for you, any messages to take.  I pass by the door of Mr. Welles’ house.  I could perfectly easily stop there and tell Mr. Marsh he could see you now, for instance.”

Marise seemed to see her from afar.  She heard what she said, but she was aware of it only as an interruption.  There was a question she must ask old Mrs. Powers.  How could she think of anything else till that had been answered?  She said to Eugenia at random, using the first phrase that came into her mind, “No, no.  Later.  Some other time.”

Eugenia hesitated, took a step away from the door, and then came back in, deliberately, close to Marise.  She spoke to her in Italian, very clearly, “He is not a man who will wait.”

To this Marise, wholly engrossed in her inner struggle, opposed a stupid blankness, an incapacity to think of what Eugenia was saying, long enough to understand it.  In that dark inner room, where she kept the door shut against the horror that was trying to come in, she dared not for an instant look away.  She merely shook her head and motioned impatiently with her hand.  Why did not Eugenia go away?

And yet when Eugenia had gone, she could not bring the words out because of that strange contraction of her throat.

“My! but you ought to go and lie down,” said Mrs. Powers compassionately.  “You’re as white as a sheet.  Why don’t you just give up for a while?  Agnes and I’ll tend to things.”

Marise was filled with terror at the idea of not getting her answer, and spoke quickly, abruptly.  “Mrs. Powers, you never heard, did you, you never thought, in that trouble about losing your wood-land . . . nobody ever thought that Mr. Lowder was only an agent for someone else, whose name wasn’t to be known then.”

“Oh sure,” said Mrs. Powers readily. “’Gene found out from a man that had lived in his town in New Hampshire that Lowder didn’t do no lumbering of his own.  He just makes a business of dirty deals like that for pay.  He always surmised it to be some lumber-company; somebody that runs a mill.  Lots of men that run mills do that sort of thing, darn ’em!”

Marise leaned against the pantry shelf.  The old woman glanced at her face, gave a cry, and pushed her into a chair, running for water.  At the sound, Agnes came trotting, and showed a scared rabbit-like face.  “She’s just beat out with the shock of Miss Hetty’s going off so sudden,” explained Mrs. Powers to Agnes.

Marise got to her feet angrily.  She had entirely forgotten that Cousin Hetty was dead, or that she was in her house.  She was shocked that for a moment she had relaxed her steady pressure against that opening door.  She flung herself against it now.  What could she do next?

Instantly, clearly, as though she had heard someone saying it to her, she thought, “Why, of course, all I have to do is to go and ask Neale about it!”