Benjamin Wright. She had
not written to Lloyd yet of that terrible interview in the garden
which would drive her from Old Chester; she had been afraid to. She
felt instinctively that his mood was not hospitable to any plan that
would bring her to live in the East. He would be less hospitable if
she came because she had been found out in Old Chester. But her
timidity about writing to him was a curious alarm to her; it was a
confession of something she would not admit even long enough to deny
it. Nevertheless, she did not write. "I will to-morrow," she assured
herself each day, But now, on top of her worry of indecision and
unacknowledged fear, came this new dismay--a party! How furious Lloyd
would be if he heard of it; well, he must not hear of it. But what
could she do? If she put it off with a flimsy excuse, it would only
defer the descent upon her. How helpless she was! They would come,
these people, they would be friendly; she could not escape them.
"Oh, I must stop this kind of thing," she said to herself,
desperately.
CHAPTER XX
With the exception of Benjamin Wright, all Old Chester lent itself to
William King's project with very good grace. Mr. Wright said, gruffly,
that a man with one foot in the grave couldn't dance a jig, so he
preferred to stay at home. But the rest of Old Chester said that
although she was so quiet and kept herself to herself so much, Mrs.
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