e and
make a clean breast of it; but Billy advised him to wait till she was
entirely well.

Dic, quite willing to postpone his confession, wrote several letters,
which kind Miss Tousy delivered; but he did not speak of Sukey Yates
until Rita's letters informed him that she was growing strong. Then he
wrote to her and told her in as few words as possible the miserable
story of his infidelity. He did not blame Sukey, nor excuse himself. He
simply stated the fact and said: "I hardly dare hope for your
forgiveness. It seems that you must despise me as I despise myself. It
is needless for me to tell you of my love for you, which has not wavered
during so many years that I have lost their count. But now that I
deserve your scorn; now that I am in dread of losing you who have so
long been more than all else to me, you are dearer than ever before.
Write to me, I beg, and tell me that you do not despise me. Ah, Rita,
compared to you, there is no beauty, no purity, no tenderness in the
world. There seems to be but one woman--you, and I have thrown away your
love as if I were a blind fool who did not know its value. Write to me,
I beg, and tell me that I am forgiven."

But she did not write to him. In place of a letter he received a small
package containing the ivory box and the unfortunate band of gold that
had brought trouble to Billy Little long years before.

WISE MISS TOUSY

CHAPTER XIV

WISE MISS TOUSY

Upon first reading Dic's letter, Rita was stunned by its contents; but
within a day or two her thoughts and emotions began to arrange
themselves, and out of order came conclusion. The first conclusion was a
surprise to her: she did not love Dic as she had supposed. A scornful
indifference seemed to occupy the place in her heart that for years had
been Dic's. With that indifference came a sense of change. Dic was not
the Dic she had known and loved. He was another person; and to this
feeling of strangeness was added one of scorn. This new Dic was a man
unworthy of any pure girl's love; and although her composite emotion was
streaked with excruciating pain, as a whole it was decidedly against
him, and she felt that she wished never to see him again. She began a
letter to him, but did not care to finish it, and returned the ring
without comment, that being the only answer he deserved. Pages of scorn
could not have brought to Dic a keener realization of the certainty and
enormity of his loss. He returned the ring