ld never see him
again, and that promise is killing me. I can't forget it even for a
moment. Ask him to forgive me, and ask him if it will be wrong for me
to break the promise when I get well. I cannot decide whether it would
be wrong for me to keep it or to break it. Both ways seem wicked to
me!'"

"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 a