The old woman was terribly shaken up; but when Billy took his departure, her faculties returned with more than pristine vigor, and poor, sick Rita, as usual, fell a victim to her restored powers of invective. Mrs. Bays shed no tears. The salt in her nature was not held in solution, but was a rock formation from which tears could not easily be distilled. "I have nursed you through sickness," she said, turning upon Rita with an indignant, injured air. "I have toiled for you, suffered for you, prayed for you. I have done my duty by you if mother ever did duty by child, and now I am insulted for your sake; but I bear it all with a contrite spirit because you are my daughter, though God's just hand is heavy upon me. There is one burden I will bear no longer. You must give up that man--that brute, who just insulted me." "He did not insult you, mother." "He did, and nothing but God's protecting grace saved me from bodily harm in my own house while protecting my daughter's honor." "But, mother," cried Rita, weeping, "you are wrong. If there was any wrong, it was I who did it." "You don't know! Oh, that I should live to see what I did see, and endure what I have endured this day for the sake of an ungrateful daughter--oh, sharper than a serpent's tooth, as the good book says--to be insulted--I never! I never!" Rita, of course, had been weeping during her mother's harangue; but when the old woman took up her meaningless refrain, "I never! I never!" the girl's sobs became almost convulsive. Mrs. Bays saw her advantage and determined not to lose it. "Promise me," demanded this tender mother, rudely shaking the girl, "promise me you will never speak to him again." Rita did not answer--she could not, and the demand was repeated. Still Rita answered not. "If you don't promise me, I'll leave your bedside. I'll never speak your name again." "Oh, mother," sobbed the girl, "I beg you not to ask that promise of me. I can't give it. I can't. I can't." "Give me the promise this instant, or I'll disown you. Do you promise?" The old woman bent fiercely over her daughter and waited stonily for an answer. Rita shrank from her, but could not resist the domineering old creature, so she whispered:-- "Yes, mother, I promise," and the world seemed to be slipping away from her forever. THE DIMPLER CHAPTER XIII THE DIMPLER Billy Little soon found Dic and greeted him with, "Well, we haven't got her yet." "No, but when she recovers, we will have her. What an idiot I was to allow that old woman to make me angry!" "You are right for once, Dic," was Billy's consoling reply. "She has been waiting for an excuse to turn you from her doors, and you furnished it. I suppose you can never enter the house again." "I don't want to enter it, unless by force to take Rita. Why didn't I take her long ago? It serves no purpose to call myself a fool, but--"