adison he would
come north to Columbus on the mail stage, and at Columbus he would be
within twenty-five miles of home.

As I have told you, Mrs. Bays grew to respect Dic; and being willing to
surrender, save for the shame of defeat, she honestly kept the terms of
her armistice. Thus Rita and Dic enjoyed the sycamore divan by the
river's edge without interference.

On the night before his departure he gave Rita the ring, saying, "This
time it is for keeps."

"I hope so," returned the girl, with a touch of doubt in her hesitating
words.

He spoke buoyantly of his trip and of the great things that were sure to
come out of it, and again Rita softly hoped so; but intimated in a
gentle, complaining tone of voice that something told her trouble would
come from the expedition. She felt that she was being treated badly,
though, being such a weak, selfish, unworthy person,--so she had been
taught by her mother to believe,--she deserved nothing better. Dic
laughed at her fears, and told her she was the one altogether perfect
human being. Although by insistence he brought her to admit that he was
right in both propositions, he failed to convince her in either, and she
spoke little, save in eloquent sighs, during the remainder of the
evening.

After the eventful night of Scott's social, Rita's surrender of self had
grown in its sweetness hour by hour; and although Dic's love had also
deepened, as his confidence grew apace he assumed an air of patronage
toward the girl which she noticed, but which she considered quite the
proper thing in all respects.

There was no abatement of his affection this last evening together, but
she was sorry to see him so joyful at leaving her. Their situation was
simply a repetition of the world-wide condition: the man with many
motives and ambitions, the woman with one--love.

After Dic had, for the twentieth time, said he must be going, the girl
whispered:--

"I fear you will carry away with you the memory of a dull evening, but
I could not talk, I could not. Oh, Dic--" Thereupon she began to weep,
and Dic, though pained, found a certain selfish joy in comforting her,
compared to which the conversation of Madame de Stael herself would have
been poor and commonplace. Then came the gate, a sweet face wet with
tears, and good-by and good-by and good-by.

Dic went home joyful. Rita went to her room weeping. It pained him to
leave her, but it grieved her far more deeply, and she began then to p