the name.

She was still staring fixedly at the shelves, frowning and beginning
again to count all the things on them, when Mrs. Powers' voice sounded
from the kitchen. "I met 'em on the way is why I'm back so soon," she
explained to Agnes. "Nelly had some flowers to bring. And they've been
down by the river and got a great lot of ferns too."

Marise started up, for an instant distracted from her concentration on
what Eugenia had said. This was the first time she had seen Nelly and
'Gene since Frank's death. How would they look? How did people go on
living? How would they speak, and how could they listen to anything but
their own thoughts? What had Frank's death meant to Nelly?

She turned shrinkingly towards Nelly. Nelly was bending down and
flicking the dust from her shoes with her handkerchief. When she stood
up, she looked straight at Marise. Under the thick-springing,
smooth-brushed abundance of her shining fair hair, her eyes, blue as
precious stones, looked out with the deep quiet which always seemed so
inscrutable to the other woman.

She held out an armful of flowers. "I thought you'd like the white phlox
the best. I had a lot of pink too, but I remembered Mrs. Bayweather said
white is best at such times."

Marise drew a long breath. What superb self-control!

"Were the biscuits good?" asked Nelly, turning to Agnes. "I was afraid
afterward maybe they weren't baked enough."

Marise was swept to her feet. If Nelly could master her nerves like
that, she could do better herself. She took the flowers, carried them to
the kitchen, and set them in a panful of water. She had not yet looked
at 'Gene.

She went to find an umbrella to shield her hatless head from the sun,
and on her way out only, cast a swift glance at 'Gene. That was enough.
All the blazing, dusty way to the mill, she saw hanging terribly before
her that haggard ashy face.

At the mill, she paused in the doorway of the lower office, looking in
on the three desk-workers, tapping on their machines, leaning sideways
to consult note-books. The young war-cripple, Neale's special protege,
seeing her, got to his feet to ask her what he could do for her.

Marise considered him for a moment before she answered. _Was_ there
anything he could do for her? Why had she come? All she could remember
for the moment was that singular contraction of her throat, which had
come back now.

Then she remembered, "Is Mr. Crittenden here?"

"No, he was called away