The house was quite silent now, except when Sarah trudged up the back stairs with the clanking silver-basket on her arm. The lamp on the corner of her bureau flickered, and a spark wavered up the chimney; the oil was gone and the wick charring. She got up and blew the smouldering flame out; then sat down again in the darkness.... Yes; Lloyd was no longer vitally interested in Frederick's health. She must make up her mind to that. But after all, what difference did that make? He loved her just the same, only men are not like women, they don't keep on saying so,--for that matter, she herself did not say so as often as in those first days. But of course she loved him just as much. She had grown a little dull, she supposed. No; she would not distrust him. She was sure he loved her. Yet behind her most emphatic 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 ten the next morning--too late to catch the express for Mercer. He would take the night train, and arrive at noon on Saturday. A day and a half to wait. And at that she realized with sudden astonishment that it was still Thursday. It seemed hours and hours since she had read that telegram.