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.

But one night as she sat thus in her bed, hammered upon beyond
endurance, she saw as though she had not seen it before what 'Gene had
finally done, his disregard of possible safety for himself, his abandon
of his futile, desperate effort to free Nelly from the tangle where her
childish vanity had cast her, the grandeur and completeness of his
gesture when he had taken Nelly into his strong arms, to die with her.
Marise found herself crying as she had not cried for years. The picture,
burned into her memory, stood there endlessly in the black night till
she understood it. The tears came raining down her face, and with them
went the strained, wild horror of the memory.

But the shadow and darkness hung about her like a cloud, through which
she only dimly saw the neat, unhurried grace of Eugenia's preparations
for departure and far travels, and felt only a dimmed, vague echo of the
emotion she had thought to feel at the disappearance of Mr. Welles,
poor, weary, futile old crusader on his Rosinante.

On that last morning of their stay she drove with them to the station,
still giving only a half-attention to the small episodes o