nd it will almost kill me to turn
against her now; but if she don't save her father and brother, I surely
will. God tells me it is my duty. I do not care for myself. I have eaten
husks all my life, ever since I got married, and I can die eating them;
but for the sake of my dear husband and my dear son who bears his own
father's name, it is my duty, God tells me it is my duty to spurn her.
It is but duty and justice; and justice to all is my motto. It was my
father's motto." She was a wordy orator, but her vocabulary was
limited; and after several repetitions of the foregoing sentiments, she
turned from oratory to anatomy. "Oh, my heart," she cried, placing her
hand upon her breast, "I believe I am about to die."

She sank gasping into the chair, from which she had risen to hurl her
Philippic at Rita's head, and by sheer force of her indomitable will
caused a most alarming pallor to overspread her face. Rita ran for the
camphor, Mr. Bays fetched the whiskey, and under these restoratives
Madam Jeffreys so far recovered that her husband and son were able to
remove her from the chair to the bed. Rita, in tribulation and tears,
sat upon the bedside, chafing her mother's hands and doing all in her
power to relieve the sufferer.

"Don't touch me, ungrateful child," cried Mrs. Margarita, "don't touch
me! If you won't save your father and brother from ruin when you can,
you are not fit to touch your mother. I am dying now," she continued,
gasping for breath. "Because of your cruelty and ingratitude, the blow
has been more than God, in His infinite mercy, has given me strength to
endure. When I am gone, you will remember about this. I forgive you; I
forgive you." Sigh followed sigh, and Rita feared she had killed her
parent.

"Oh, mother," she sobbed, "I will do what you wish. Ah, no, I can't. I
can't do it. Don't ask me."

"Beg her, father, beg her," whispered Mrs. Bays to her spouse when she
saw that Rita was wavering. Bays hesitated; but a look from the bed
brought him to a proper condition of obedience:--

"Rita, won't you save your father and brother?" he asked, taking his
daughter's hands in his own. "We are all ruined and disgraced and lost
forever if you do not. Rita, I beg you to do this for my sake."

The father's appeal she could not withstand. She covered her face with
her hands; then, suddenly drawing herself upright and drying her tears,
she said in a low voice, "I will."

Those two little words changed the