‘Bring up that-there lamp, Ellen.’

Herself going up the bare stair, a long way to the level of the high ceiling. A long woman hanging down from the banister rail, hanging still.

‘No, don’t cut no rope, she might be still a-liven.’

‘Lift her up easy now.’

‘Get a hold under her arms. Take a hold there, Ellen.’

‘Lift her back over the banister rail.’

‘Easy now.’

‘Get water.’

‘Shut her eyes for her.’

‘Fan her in the face.’

‘Stand back. Open that window. Where’s the brandy, now?’

‘Oh, fix her mouth decent, fix it for her.’

‘Put the brandy in her mouth. Rub her. Rub her hands.’

‘Shut her eyes, I’d say.’

‘Try the brandy again, just a leetle more, try it once again, why don’t you?’

‘Fix her mouth decent. Take the rope offen her neck, there.’

‘Try the brandy again. Keep on a-tryen. Let’s fan her. Where’s the fan?’

‘Oh, fold her hands crossways. Fold her hands and fix her decent. Quit a-worryen her, now. Poor soul!’

‘What made her look so lax, spread on the floor and given away?’ Ellen’s own voice questioned the old event. ‘What made her look so lax? She was like a long rope spread on the floor. Miss Cassie MacMurtrie she used to be, a-riden on a horse or in her backyard to call her chickens. Now she was on a dusty floor with people a-taken hold of her to pull her this way and that. She was just some more of the rope that was tied to the banister, under foot.’

The voices at the dialogue again: ‘Bring up that-there lamp, Ellen.’

Herself going up the bare stairs, a long way to the level of the high upper floor. A long woman hanging down from the banister rail, hanging still.

Another voice, an old hard voice, from far off: ‘Let Cassie do hit. She’ll drag Scott through fire and hell afore she’s done… Hit’ll be like throwen a lame rabbit in a pack of fifty starved hound dogs…’ A low voice: ‘There won’t be enough left of Scott MacMurtrie to wad a gun with. I know Cassie Beal… She’s made outen fire and hell…’

‘And while they were a-sayen it,’ Ellen spoke in her turn, ‘She was even then a-thinken about a rope… Had it in mind that Scott MacMurtrie had gone away with Mandy Cain.’

Her own hour gathered with the old event, identified with it, standing over her. She could not be the same, could never go back and be the same she had been before Jonas. She would take him out of her mind. She would tear him out if she had to tear out her very entrails, if she had to gut herself and brain herself with her own hands.

She could never do it; he had run in very deep upon her life. She would kill him with her terrible hands. She would strangle him with one strong grip. He had run into her blood and into her very breath. She hated him. She would take him out of herself if she had to tear him out with a gun or with a knife. She would kill him where he stood when she saw him again.