Maude's long nose unexpectedly wrinkled up. "Happened to be in the hall! Happened to hear you quarrel about her! Oh, well, you can't really blame Lolotte. She lost her beau to you". But she was talking of Emile when she saw the black line of the open door; Sarah remembered it clearly. Maude went on. "I've got to get busy. Miss Celie's taken to her bed, with the door locked. She opened it an inch and poked out the keys for me to give you. Here" -- She thrust a bundle of keys strung on a thick red cord into Sarah's hand. "Not that there's much use in locking up the smokehouse and the storehouse now. Drink your coffee" -- coffee. "It's -- cold". Maude suddenly looked quite capable of pouring it down her throat. "I don't want it", Sarah said, firmly. "Oh. Well -- I'll take it down with me as I go". Maude swooped up the cup and hiked up her top hoop as if about to take off with a racing start. At the door she turned back, her Roman nose looking very long now and satiric. "I forgot. Ben and Lucien have gone after them. It's just like that book your Northern friend wrote -- except there aren't any ice floes to cross and no bloodhounds". "I don't know Mrs. Stowe. What can they do if they find them"? "They can't do anything. It's silly, childish, running after them like that. I told Ben so. But of course the paterollers won't be of any help, not with everything so upset and that Yankee cavalry outfit they say is running around, God knows where". She had swished away, she had been gone for a long time probably when Sarah suddenly realized that she ought to stop her, pour out the coffee, so no one would drink it. But then the so-called coffee was bad enough at best, cold it was all but undrinkable -- especially that cup! She was deeply, horribly sure that Lucien had filled it with opium. She had quarreled with Lucien, she had resisted his demands for money -- and if she died, by the provisions of her marriage contract, Lucien would inherit legally not only the immediate sum of gold under the floorboards in the office, but later, when the war was over, her father's entire estate. She felt cold and hot, sticky and chilly at the same time. Now wait a minute, she told herself, think about it; Lucien is not the only person in this house who could have put opium in that coffee. She had lost a bottle of opium -- but that was on the trip from New Orleans. Or someone had taken it during her first day at Honotassa. Yes, she had missed it after her talk with Emile, after dinner, just before Emile was shot. Rilly or Glendora had entered her room while she slept, bringing back her washed clothes. So somebody else could have come in, too -- then or later while she was out of the room. It would have been easy to identify as opium by its odor. It was not very reasonable to believe that Lucien had procured unprocurable opium and come back to Honotassa with a formed plan to murder her. He didn't even know that she was there. And he certainly couldn't have guessed that she would resist his demand for the gold or that she was not the yielding -- yes, and credible fool he had every right to expect. No, he had been surprised, unpleasantly surprised, but surprised. Then somebody else? Don't question, Rev had said, don't invite danger. Her skin crawled: Lolotte had told Maude that she was in the hall and the door was open. Sarah had begun to tell Lucien of Emile, she had begun to question and a little draft had crept across the room from the bedroom door, open barely enough to show a rim of blackness in the hall. So Lolotte -- or anybody -- could have listened, and that somebody could have already been supplied with the missing bottle of opium. That was not reasonable either. The opium had disappeared before Emile's death and whoever shot him could not by any stretch of the imagination have foreseen Sarah's own doubts and suspicions -- and questions. She began to doubt whether there had been in fact a lethal dose of opium in the cup. So suppose somebody only wished to frighten her, so she would leave Honotassa! That made a certain amount of logic. Added to the argument was the fact that while she might have tasted the coffee if it had been still hot, she might even have drunk some of it, she wouldn't have taken enough to kill her, for she would have been warned by its taste. No. It was merely an attempt to frighten her. She wouldn't go back to New York as Maude suggested; she wouldn't run like a scared cat. But -- well, she'd be very careful. She dressed and the accustomed routine restored to her a sense of normal everyday life. But before she left her room she dug into her big moire bag, took out the envelope holding her marriage contract and the wax seal had been broken. So somebody else knew what would happen to her father's money if she died. Rev had known all along. Rev didn't need to break the wax seal, read the contract and find out. He could conceivably have wished to make sure; Rev loved Honotassa, it was like a part of his breath and body; Rev had stressed the need for money. Rev would never have tried to give her poison! She thrust the envelope back in the bag; there was no point in locking it up in the armoire now, it was like locking the barn after the horse was stolen. And in all likelihood, by now, there was more than one person in the house who knew the terms of her marriage contract. There was no point either in telling herself again what a fool she'd been. She went downstairs and received another curious shock, for when Glendora flapped into the dining room in her homemade moccasins, Sarah asked her when she had brought coffee to her room and Glendora said she hadn't. "Too much work this morning, Miss Sarah -- everybody gone like that" -- Sarah swallowed past another kind of constriction in her throat. "Well, then who brought it"? "Miss Maude. She come to the kitchen and say she take it up to you". Glendora put down a dish of lukewarm rice. "Not much breakfast this morning. I don't know what we're going to do, Miss Sarah". "We've got to eat", Sarah said, curtly, because a chill crawled over her again. Maude? Glendora flapped away. The rice wasn't dosed with opium, indeed it had no taste at all, not a grain of salt. She ate what she could and went out along the covered passageway, with the rain dripping from the vines. In the kitchen Glendora was despairingly picking chickens. "Get a basket", Sarah told her. "We'll go to the storehouse". Glendora dropped a chicken and a flurry of feathers, and went with her through the drizzle, to the storehouse. Sarah found the right key and unlocked the door. It was a long, low room, like a root cellar, for it was banked up with soil, and vines had run rampant over that, too. It was dark but dry and cool. She doled out what Glendora vaguely guessed were the right amounts of dried peas, eggs, cornmeal, a little salt. The shelves looked emptier than when Miss Celie had shown her the storeroom, and since the men from the Commissary had called; there were certainly now fewer mouths to feed but there was less to feed them with. She took Glendora to the smokehouse, unlocked it and saw with satisfaction there was still a quantity of hams and sides of bacon, hanging from the smoke-stained rafters. They wouldn't go hungry, not yet. And the fields were green and growing. "Can't you possibly imagine what life is going to be like, here"? Maude had said. Maude. She sent Glendora back to the house, her basket and her apron laden. She stood for a moment, rain dripping from the trees over her head, thinking of Maude. Maude had the opportunity to take the bottle of opium from Sarah's room. Maude had the cool ruthlessness to do whatever she made up her mind to do. She couldn't see how her death could affect Maude. She couldn't see any reason why Maude would attempt to frighten her. Besides, there was something hysterical and silly, something almost childish about an attempt to frighten her. Maude was neither hysterical nor silly and Sarah rather doubted if she had ever been childish. Yet Maude had suggested that Sarah return to New York. Maude could have shot Emile -- if she'd had a reason to kill him. There was no use in standing there in the drizzle, trying to find a link between Emile's murder and opium in a cup of coffee. She started back for the house, saw a light in the office, opened the door and surprised a domestic little scene which was far outside the dark realm of murder or attempted murder. Rev, George and Lolotte were mending shoes. A lighted lamp stood on the table that dusky, drizzling day. They were all three bent over a shabby riding boot; George had a tack hammer. Lolotte held a patch of leather, Rev steadied something, a tiny brad, waiting for George's poised hammer. George said, "First thing I do when I get to Vicksburg again, is get me a Yankee" -- "With boots on", Lolotte laughed softly. Rev looked up and saw her. Lolotte looked up and stiffened. George didn't look up at all. There was no way to know, no way to guess whether any one of them was surprised at Sarah's appearance, believing her to be drugged and senseless -- and just possibly dead. Rev said, "Come in, Sarah. Reckon you know the news". And what news, Sarah thought as satirically as Maude might have said it. Rev's face was suddenly a little fixed and questioning. He turned to George and Lolotte. "Take your cobbler's shop somewhere else. I want to talk to Sarah". Everything in the office, the spreading circle of lamplight, the patch of leather in Lolotte's hands. George poised with the tack hammer, the homely, everyday atmosphere, all denied an attempt at murder. A rush of panic caught Sarah. "No. Not now. I mean I've got to -- to see to the kitchen. Glendora" -- Her words jumbled together and she all but ran from the office and from the question in Rev's face. Now why did I do that? She thought as warm, drizzling rain touched her face. She was no schoolgirl, refusing to bear tales. As she reached the kitchen door the answer presented itself; if she told anyone of the opium it must be Lucien, her husband. It might be, indeed it had already proved to be a marriage without love, but it was marriage. So she couldn't choose Rev as a confidant; it must be Lucien. Always provided that Lucien himself had not dosed her coffee with opium, she thought, as coldly and sharply, again, as Maude might have said it. She paused at the kitchen door, caught her breath, told herself firmly that the opium was only an attempt to frighten her and went into the kitchen, where Glendora was eyeing the chickens dismally and Maude was cleaning lamp chimneys. Glendora gave a gulp. "Miss Sarah, I can't cut up no chicken. Miss Maude say she won't". Again the homely, everyday details of daily living refuted a vicious attempt to frighten her -- or to murder her. The homely everyday details of living and domestic requirements also pressed upon her with their immediate urgency. No matter what had happened or hadn't happened, somebody had to see about dinner. She eyed the chickens with, if she had known it, something of Glendora's dismal look and thought with a certain fury of the time she had spent on Latin verbs.