The day that Sam Wright was buried Helena had written to Lloyd Pryor.
She must see him at once, she said. He must let her know when he would
come to Old Chester--or she would come to him, if he preferred. "It is
most important," she ended, "most important." She did not say
why; she could not write of this dreadful thing that had happened.
Still less could she put down on paper that sense of guilt, so
alarming in its newness and so bewildering in its complexity. She was
afraid of it, she was even ashamed of it; she and Lloyd had never
talked about--things like that. So she made no explanation. She only
summoned him with a peremptoriness which had been absent from their
relations for many years. His answer, expected and despaired of, came
three weeks later.

It was early in October one rainy Friday afternoon. Helena and David
were in the dining-room. She had helped him with his lessons,--for it
was Dr. Lavendar's rule that Monday's lessons were to be learned on
Friday; and now they had come in here because the old mahogany table
was so large that David could have a fine clutter of gilt-edged
saucers from his paint-box spread all around. He had a dauby tumbler
of water beside him, and two or three Godey's Lady's Books
awaiting his eager brush. He was very busy putting gamboge on the
curls of a lady whose petticoats, by a discreet mixture of gamboge and
Prussian blue, were a most beautiful green.