All that I have narrated as taking place after Williams entered upon the scene occurred within the space of two or three minutes, and Rita first learned that Dic was going when she heard the door close.
"Dic!" she cried, and started to follow him, but her mother caught her wrist and said sternly:—
"Stay here, Rita. Don't go to the door."
"But, mother—"
"Stay here, I command you," and Rita did not go to the door. Dic met Mr. Bays at the gate, paused for a word of greeting, and plunged into the snow-covered forest, while the words "during the last four months" rang in his ears with a din that was almost maddening.
"She might have told me," he muttered, speaking as if to the storm. "While I have been thinking of her every moment, she has been listening to him. But her letters were full of love. She surely loved me when I met her two hours ago. No woman could feign love so perfectly. She must love me. I can't believe otherwise. I will see her again to-night and she will explain all, I am sure. There is no deceit in her." His returning confidence eased, though it did not cure, his pain. It substituted another after a little time—suspense. It was not in his nature to brook suspense, and he determined again and again to see Rita that evening.
But his suspense was ended without seeing Rita. When he reached home he found Sukey, blushing and dimpling, before the fire, talking to his mother.
"Been over to see Rita?" she asked, parting her moist, red lips in a smile, showing a gleam of her little, white teeth, and dimpling exquisitely.
"Yes," answered Dic, laconically.
"Thought maybe you would stay for supper," she continued.