"And you still love me?" he asked.
"Ah," was her only reply; but the monosyllable was eloquent.
Dic at once left the house, but Billy Little remained.
"I never in all my life!" exclaimed Mrs. Bays, rising from her chair. Billy did not comprehend the exact meaning of her mystic words, but in a general way supposed they referred to her recent experiences as unusual.
"You were mistaken, Mrs. Bays," he said. "Dic could not offer insult to your daughter. You were mistaken."
"I guess I was," she replied; "I guess I was, but I never, I never in all my life!"
The old woman was terribly shaken up; but when Billy took his departure, her faculties returned with more than pristine vigor, and poor, sick Rita, as usual, fell a victim to her restored powers of invective.
Mrs. Bays shed no tears. The salt in her nature was not held in solution, but was a rock formation from which tears could not easily be distilled.
"I have nursed you through sickness," she said, turning upon Rita with an indignant, injured air. "I have toiled for you, suffered for you, prayed for you. I have done my duty by you if mother ever did duty by child, and now I am insulted for your sake; but I bear it all with a contrite spirit because you are my daughter, though God's just hand is heavy upon me. There is one burden I will bear no longer. You must give up that man—that brute, who just insulted me."
"He did not insult you, mother."