Noon
If the spirit of feud was aroused against the mill owners , if the Groners and Dawsons had been able to enlist their kin and clan , she was well aware that the man or woman who gave her smiling information as to ways and means , might , the hour before , have looked on Gray Stoddard lying dead , or sat in the council which planned to kill him . Thus she walked warily , and dared ask from none directions or help . She was not yet in her own region , these lower ridges lying between two lines of railway , which , from the mountaineer 's point of view , contaminated them and gave them a tincture of the valley and the Settlement . Noon came and passed . She was very weary . Factory life had told on her physically , and the recent distress of mind added its devitalizing influence . There was a desperate flagging of the muscles weakened by disuse and an unhealthy indoor life .