, whom she knew to be the
cause of Dic's desertion. The letter to Rita, like the one to Dic,
contained no word of reproach. "I do not blame you for keeping him," she
said in closing. "He has always belonged to you. I hope you will be
happy and not trouble yourselves about me. No one knows about this
terrible affair, Rita, but you and Dic, and I hope you will tell nobody.
Especially, please, please, don't tell Tom. This is the only request I
make: don't let Tom know anything about it. I want to confess, Rita,
that I have been very wicked, and that Dic is not to blame. I feel it my
duty to tell you this, so that you may not blame him. I have brought
trouble to you both, and it is as little as I should do to tell you the
truth. The fault was mine. I gave him a love powder. But I loved him."

Sukey's letter came one morning four or five days before Christmas. Rita
wept all day over it, and at night it helped her in taking a step that
settled all the momentous questions touching Dic and herself.

On the same fateful day Mr. Bays and Tom came home together in the
middle of the afternoon. That unwonted event was, in itself, alarming.
Rita was reading near the window, and her mother was knitting before the
fire. When our Toms, father and son, entered the room, trouble was
plainly visible upon their faces. Tom senior threw his cap and great fur
coat on the bed, while De Triflin' leaned against the mantel-shelf.
Drawing a chair to the fire, Tom the elder said:--

"Well, Margarita, I guess we're ruined--Jim and me and Tom--all of us. I
see no earthly way out of it."

"What's the matter?" asked Madam Jeffreys, folding her knitting and
placing it in her lap with great deliberation. Rita dropped her book,
and went over to her father.

"Williams, I suppose?" queried Madam Jeffreys.

"Yes; he has had orders from home to collect the money we owe the house,
or else to take the store, the farm, our household furniture,
everything, at once. Williams leaves for home Christmas Day, and
everything must be settled before then. He gives us till to-morrow noon
to raise the money. But that is not the worst," continued Mr. Bays,
nervously, rising and turning his back to the fire, "Tom has--has
overdrawn his account more than a thousand dollars in Williams's office.
Williams don't call it 'overdrawn.' He calls it embezzlement, theft. Tom
and me went to Judge Blackford and told him just how the money was
taken. The Judge says Williams is right