"No," replied Dic.
"Perhaps the other fellow was there," remarked Sukey, shrugging her plump shoulders and laughing softly. Dic did not reply, but drew a chair to the hearth.
"Guess they're to be married soon," volunteered Sukey. "He has been coming Saturdays and staying over Sunday ever since you left. Guess he waited for you to get out of the way. I think he's so handsome. Met him one Sunday afternoon at the step-off. I went over to see Rita, and her mother said she had gone to take a walk with Mr. Williams in that direction after dinner. I knew they would be at the step-off; it's such a lonely place. He lives in Boston, and they say he's enormously rich." During the long pause that followed Dic found himself entirely relieved of suspense. There was certainty to his heart's content. He did not show his pain; and much to her joy Sukey concluded that Dic did not care anything about the relations between Williams and Rita.
"Rita showed me the ring he gave her," continued Sukey. Dic winced, but controlled himself. It was his ring that Sukey had seen on Rita's finger, but Dic did not know that.
"Some folks envy her," observed the dimpler, staring in revery at the fire. "She'll have a fine house, servants, and carriages"—Dic remembered having used those fatal words himself—"and will live in Boston; but for myself—well, I never intend to marry, but if I do I'll take one of the boys around here, or I'll die single. The boys here are plenty good enough for me."
The big, blue eyes, covered by downcast lashes, were carefully examining a pair of plump, little, brown hands resting in her lap, but after a pause she flashed a hurried glance upon Dic, which he did not see.
When a woman cruelly wounds a man as Rita had wounded Dic, the first remedy that suggests itself to the normal masculine mind is another woman, and the remedy is usually effective. There may not be as good fish in the sea as the one he wants, but good fish there are, in great numbers. Balm of Gilead doubtless has curative qualities; but for a sore, jealous, aching, masculine heart I would every time recommend the fish of the sea.
Sukey, upon Mrs. Bright's invitation, remained for supper, and Dic, of course, was compelled to take her home. Upon arrival at the Yates mansion, Sukey invited Dic to enter. Dic declined. She drew off her mittens and took his hand.
"Why," she said, "your hands are like ice; you must come in and warm them. Please do," so Dic hitched his horse under a straw-covered shed and went in with the remedy. One might have travelled far and wide before finding a more pleasant remedy than Sukey; but Dic's ailments were beyond cure, and Sukey's smiles might as well have been wasted upon her brother snowman in the adjacent field.
Soon after Dic's arrival, all the family, save Sukey, adjourned to the kitchen, leaving the girl and her "company" to themselves, after the dangerous manner of the times.