Part Two - Beside the Onion-Bed

July 10.

Marise pulled nervously and rapidly at the weeds among the onions, and
wiped away with her sleeve the drops that ran down her hot, red face.
She was not rebellious at the dusty, tiresome task, nor aware of the
merciless heat of the early-summer sun. She was not indeed thinking at
all of what she was doing, except that the physical effort of stooping
and reaching and pulling was a relief to her, made slightly less
oppressive the thunder-heavy moral atmosphere she breathed. She was
trying to think, but the different impressions came rushing into her
mind with such vehement haste that they dashed against each other
brutally, to her entire confusion.

When she tried to think out an answer to this perfectly preposterous
idea of old Mr. Welles, why should a thousand other horrifying ideas
which she had been keeping at bay pour in through the door, once opened
to probing thought? What possible connection could there be between such
a fantastic crazy notion as his, and those other heaving, looming
possibilities which rolled themselves higher and murkier the longer she
refused to look at them? She snatched at the weeds, twitching them up,
flinging them down, reaching, straining, the sun molten on her back, the
sweat stinging on her face. It was a silly impression of course, but it
seemed to her that if she hurried fast enough with the weeds, those
thoughts and doubts could not catch up with her.