assertions cowered that dumb apprehension which had struck its cold
talons into her heart the day that David had hurt his hand: ...
_Suppose Frederick's death should be an embarrassment to Lloyd!_

In the darkness, with the brush of the locust branches against the
closed shutters of the east window, her face blazed with angry color,
and she threw her head up with a surge of pride. "If he doesn't want
me, I don't want him!" she said aloud. She pulled the lace bertha from
her shoulders, and began to take out her hairpins, "I sha'n't be the
one to say 'Let us be married.'"

When she lay down in the darkness, her eyes wide open, her arms
straight at her sides, it flashed into her mind that Frederick was
lying still and straight, too. His face must be white, now; sunken,
perhaps; the leer of his pale eyes changed into the sly smile of the
dead. _Dead._ Oh, at last, at last!--and her mind rushed back to
its own affairs....That horrible old Mr. Wright and his insinuations;
how she had worried over them and over the difficulty of getting away
from Old Chester, only that afternoon. Ah, well, she need never think
of such things again, for never again could any one have an insulting
thought about her; and as for her fear that Lloyd would not want her
to leave Old Chester--why, he would take her away himself! And once
outside of Old Chester, she would have a place in the world like other
women. She was conscious of a sudden and passionate elation: _Like
other women._ The very words were triumphant! Yes; like that
dreadful Mrs. King; oh, how intolerably stupid the woman was, how she
disliked her; but when Lloyd came and they went away together, she
would be like Mrs. King! She drew an exultant breath and smiled
proudly in the darkness. For the moment the cowering fear was
forgotten....How soon could he come? He ought to have the telegram by