for a moment she could not breathe. It was like a whirlwind, wrenching
and tearing her from the soil of contentment into which for so many
years her vanity and selfishness had struck their roots.

_"But the Lord was not in the wind."_




CHAPTER XVIII


When Helena went back to the house, her face was red, and her whole
body tingling; every now and then her breath came in a gasp of rage.
At that moment she believed that she hated everybody in the world--the
cruel, foolish, arrogant world!--even the thought of David brought no
softening. And indeed, when that first fury had subsided, she still
did not want to see the little boy; that destroying wind of anger had
beaten her complacency to the dust, and she could not with dignity
meet the child's candid eyes. It was not until the next day that she
could find any pleasure in him, or even in the prospect of Lloyd's
visit; and when these interests began to revive, sudden gusts of rage
would tear her, and she would fall into abrupt reveries, declaring to
herself that she would tell Lloyd how she had been insulted! But she
reminded herself that she must choose just the right moment to enlist
his sympathy for the affront; she must decide with just what caress
she would tell him that she meant to leave Old Chester, and come, with
David, to live in Philadelphia. (Oh, would Frederick _ever_ die?)...
But, little by little, she put the miserable matter behind her, and
filled the days before Lloyd's arrival with plans for the few golden