"Wicked!" cried Billy springing from his chair excitedly, and walking across the room, gloves in one hand, stick in the other, and Brummel coat buttoned tightly across the questionable waistcoat, "my dear lady, tell her it will be wicked—damnable—beg pardon, beg pardon; but I must repeat, dear lady, it will be wicked and wrong—a damning wrong, if she keeps the promise obtained by force—by force, lady, by duress. Tell her I absolve her from the promise. I will go to Rome and get the Pope's absolution. No! that will be worse than none for Rita; she is a Baptist. Well, well, I'll hunt out the head Baptist,—the high chief of all Baptists, if there is one,—and will get his absolution. But, my dear Miss Tousy, she has faith in me. I have never led her wrong in my life, and she knows it. Tell her I say the promise is not binding, before either God or man, and you will help her."
"And tell her she will not be able to keep the promise," interrupted Dic. "I'll make it impossible. When she recovers, I'll kidnap her, if need be."
"I'll go at once and tell her," returned Miss Tousy. "She is in need of those messages."
Dic and Billy walked down to Bays's with Miss Tousy, and waited on the corner till she emerged from the house, when they immediately joined her.
"I gave her the messages," said Miss Tousy, "and she became quieter at once. 'Tell him I'll get well now,' she whispered. Then she smiled faintly, and said, 'Wouldn't it be romantic to be kidnapped?' After that she was silent; and within five minutes she slept, for the first time since yesterday."
Rita's illness proved to be typhoid fever, a frightful disease in those days of bleeding and calomel.
Billy returned home after a few days, but Dic remained to receive his diurnal report from Miss Tousy.
One evening during the fourth week of Rita's illness Dic received the joyful tidings that the fever had subsided, and that she would recover. He spent a great part of the night watching her windows from across the street, as he had spent many a night before.
On returning to the inn he found a letter from Sukey Yates. He had been thinking that the fates had put aside their grudge against him, and that his luck had turned. When he read the letter announcing that the poor little dimpler was in dire tribulation, and asking him to return to her at once and save her from disgrace, he still felt that the fates had changed—but for the worse. He was sure Sukey might, with equal propriety, make her appeal to several other young men—especially to Tom Bays; but he was not strong enough in his conviction to relieve himself of blame, or entirely to throw off a sense of responsibility. In truth, he had suffered for weeks with an excruciating remorse; and the sin into which he had been tempted had been resting like lead upon his conscience. He remembered Billy's warning against Sukey's too seductive charms; and although he had honestly tried to follow the advice, and had clearly seen the danger, he had permitted himself to be lured into a trap by a full set of dimples and a pair of moist, red lips. He was not so craven as to say, even to himself, that Sukey was to blame; but deep in his consciousness he knew that he had tried not to sin; and that Sukey, with her allurements, half childish, half-womanly, and all-enticing, had tempted him, and he had eaten. The news in her letter entirely upset him. For a time he could not think coherently. He had never loved Sukey, even for a moment. He could not help admiring her physical beauty. She was a perfect specimen of her type, and her too affectionate heart and joyous, never-to-be-ruffled good humor made her a delightful companion, well fitted to arouse tenderness. Add virtue and sound principle to Sukey's other attractions, and she would have made a wife good enough for a king—too good, far too good. For the lack of those qualities she was not to blame, since they spring from heredity or environment. Sukey's parents were good, honest folk, but wholly unfitted to bring up a daughter. Sukey at fourteen was quite mature, and gave evidence of beauty so marked as to attract men twice her age, who "kept company" with her, as the phrase went, sat with her till late in the night, took her out to social gatherings, and—God help the girl, she was not to blame. She did only as others did, as her parents permitted; and her tender little heart, so prone to fondness, proved to be a curse rather than the blessing it would have been if properly directed and protected. Mentally, physically, and temperamentally she was very close to nature, and nature, in the human species, needs curbing.
The question of who should bear the blame did not enter into Dic's perturbed cogitations. He took it all upon his own broad shoulders, and did not seek to hide his sin under the cloak of that poor extenuation, "she did tempt me." If Rita's love should turn to hatred (he thought it would), he would marry Sukey and bear his burden through life; but if Rita's love could withstand this shock, Sukey's troubles would go unrighted by him. Those were the only conclusions he could reach. His keen remorse was the result of his sin; and while he pitied Sukey, he did not trust her.